THE CAMBRIDGE -.ANC IE N'T 'HIS TOR
Volumes i-vi
EDITORS
Volumes vii-xt
J, B. BURY, F.B.A.
S. A. CO'OKj. Lirr.D.
F, E. ADCOCK, M,A.
S, A. COOK, IITT.D., F.B.A. ,
F. 1. ADCOCK, M.A., F.B.A* '
Uy P. ■ C, H A E L E S WORT H,, ' ■.15', Av'
S. A, ; COOK,.. .llTT*D.., .FR,A/ :
?• I, : A D CO C K, ' ' M,A., :
m.l ;P.; ■■€ HA RD is: W O E T'R, . M,A,
:h,^. BA Y.KIS^'; M,.A., ■ F.B.A. ■'
LONDON
Cambridge University Press
BENTLEY HOUSE, N.W. I
TORONTO
BOMBAY • CALCUTTA ‘ MADRAS
Macmillan
TOKYO
Maruzen Company Ltd
All rights reserved
THE
CAMBRIDGE
ANCIENT HISTORY-A
VOLUME XII
THE IMPERIAL CRISIS
AND RECOVERY
A.D. 193—324
EDITED BY
S. A. COOK, Litt.D., F.B.A.
F. E. ADCOeK, M.A., F.B.A.
M. P. CHARLESWORTH, M.A.
ISr. H. BAYNES, M.A., F.B.A.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
T he Cambridge Medieval History takes its beginning from the
triumph of Constantine over his latest rival and thefoundation
of that city which for sixteen centuries was to be known by his
name. This fact suffices to explain why this, the last volume of
the Cambridge Ancient History y cnAz where it does. The volume is
concerned with the evolution of the Imperial autocracy, the crisis
that beset the Empire and threatened its dissolution, and the
resolute recovery and reconstruction which made it possible for
the Middle Age of Europe to inherit much that had been the
possession of the Ancient World. It further describes the eco-
nomic, intellectual and artistic character of that world in the
closing phase, and the contemporary growth of the Christian
Church within the Empire until, after conflict, it was taken into
partnership by the Roman State. What the Ancient World owed
to the past and could transmit to the future is indicated in the
Epilogue which follows the final chapter of the volume and marks
the completion of the work.
The period under review has a lasting monument in the work
of Gibbon, but since his day the progressive criticism and ap-
praisement of the literary sources and the wealth of fresh material
both epigraphic, and still more numismatic, have combined to
make corrections and new interpretations possible. Much still
remains only half known or in dispute — and that fact has not been
concealed in these pages — but the main outlines become sharper
and firmer with each decade of scholarship. Yet it is not in details
only that there remain pronounced differences of historical judg-
ment: there is no agreement over important general questions
such, for instance, as the relations between the Empire and the
Christian Church. The testing of each strand of evidence demands
the services of experts which are enlisted in this volume, and an
attempt has been made to weave the strands together.
The Table of Contents reveals how many countries have played
a part in this historical reconstruction of the period, and the
bibliographies show the varied literature which in comparatively
recent times has grown up to help the student. Continental
scholarship is represented by chappy from Professor Alfbldi of
Budapest, Professor Bidez of Ghent, Professor Christensen of
Copenhagen, Professor Ensslin of Erlangen, Professor Halphen
PREFACE
of Paris, Professors Lietzmann and Rodenwaldt of Berlin and
Professor Oertel of Bonn. Professor Nock and Professor Rand
write from Harvard. The British contributors are Professor
Baynes, Professor Collingwood, Mr Mattingly and Mr Miller.
Two chapters (xiii and xiv) were written by the late Professor
Burkitt shortly before his death in I 93_J. He did not live to revise
them or to consider their contents in relation to other parts of the
volume, which were then not written. These chapters needed to
receive some revision and addition, and for this the volume is
indebted to Professor Greed. An indication of these additions is
given in the Table of Contents, but it is in place to say here that the
account of Marcion, the gnostics, Syriac Christianity and the
teachings of Mani are almost entirely as Professor Burkitt wrote
them. The two chapters will be welcomed as a last example of
the author’s scholarship and intuition.
The volume begins with two chapters which give the political
history of the period to the death of Philip the Arabian. By this
time the Empire was faced by the new power of Sassanid Persia
and the invasions of peoples from the Rhine to the Black Sea,
whereas behind these the world of the Far East was in a turmoil
from which were to emerge later even more far-reaching and
disastrous movements of peoples. These are the subjects of
chapters in, ivand v. The great immediate crisis which threatened
the dissolution of the Empire and its underlying causes are then
described. At this point comes a review of the economic life
of the Empire in the second and third centuries, which gives
the background for the Imperial reconstruction that is to follow.
A special problem in this field is that of Britain. The military
history of Britain under Septimius Severus has already been
treated. Now, as is appropriate in a work primarily intended
for English readers, a brief review is given of the later develop-
ment of Roman Britain. Next comes the description of the Im-
perial recovery, which was primarily the achievement of the Illyrian
emperors. These more narrative chapters are followed by the
systematic discussion first, of the transition from the Principate to
the full Autocracy and secondly, of the reforms of Diocletian. The
Great Persecution under Diocletian and the career of Constantine
are reserved for the end of the volume, where they introduce the
transition from the ancient to the medieval order. After the
survey of the political and economic history of the period, there
follows the second part of the volume; this is concerned with the
religious, artistic and literary tendencies of the age. First comes
a chapter on Pagan development in cults and religious thought.
PREFACE
vii
The next three chapters deal with Pagan Philosophy and the
Christian Church, together with the progress of the Church in
the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire. These complete
the picture of Christianity as a religious movement. At this point
the transition of art from the classical to the late-classical is
described. Next Latin literature is taken up from the point at
which it was left in Volume xi, and in the survey are included
the works of Christian authors writing in Latin. The second part
of the volume is completed by a review of the philosophy and
letters of the Greek-speaking parts of the Empire. There follow
two closing chapters; in these the Great Persecution under Dio-
cletian and its antecedents are considered and then the career of
Constantine is outlined up to the Council of Nicaea, the point at
which the Cambridge Medieval History opens. The volume ends
with a short Epilogue.
It has already been pointed out that the advance in the study
of this period has been due to criticism of sources and in particular
to the use of numismatic evidence. The literary sources are briefly
indicated in an Appendix to which Mr Mattingly has contributed
a review of the evidence that is supplied by the study of coins.
In three Notes the authors of chapters v— vi and vn treat of
particular problems, and then follow the bibliographies, which are
the work of the authors of the several chapters, except for the
General Bibliography and that to chapters xin— xv in which, in
the absence of a bibliography from Professor Burkitt, will be seen
the co-operation of several scholars besides Professor Lietzmann,
the author of chapter xv. To these scholars, as indeed to all the
writers who have taken great pains with the bibliographical
material, students will, we hope, be grateful. Between the several
bibliographies there has been a certain amount of interlocking, as
also between these and the General Bibliography, which precedes
them. Here and there a very recent book or an article about to
be published may fail to be entered in a bibliography, though
additions have been allowed as late as possible.
The varied character of the sources for this period has presented
formal difficulties in the methods of reference, and we are indebted
to the contributors for their willingness to see their own practice
modified to secure such uniformity as is possible. If any form of
reference is not immediately clear to the reader, assistance will be
found in the details given in the Index of Passages. In the use
of capitals and italics in the text of the chapters the practice of
former volumes has been followed, and lack of uniformity is
rather apparent than real. ; >
viii PREFACE
On the title-page of this volume appear not three but four names
arranged in the order dictated by the conventions of the U niversity .
The fourth name is that of Professor N. H. Baynes, who has the
chief responsibility for the planning of the volume, though in this,
as in earlier volumes, we have always had before us the original
scheme as drafted by Professor Bury. The part Professor Bury
played in the editing of the first half of this work and the width
and depth of his historical judgment have not been forgotten by
us, and we wish to take this final opportunity of placing on record
our sense of his services to this work. The Ancient History has been
an enterprise of the University through its Press, but it has been
helped by many scholars of many Universities. Only the Editors
know how greatly this help has exceeded the sum of the chapters
which appear under the names of the several contributors. What
is true of the whole is true of this volume, and we are also much
indebted to contributors for their readiness to adapt their work
to its needs. On the other hand, especially in a period when so
much is in dispute, there would accrue more loss than gain from
a forced uniformity of outlook or the suppression of conflicting
views, when the same topics are bound to be discussed by more
than one contributor. We have endeavoured to secure that where
there must be such differences, the reader should know of their
existence and their causes. We believe, however, that the volume
■ possesses the unity that comes from the application of the same
principles of criticism to all the problems which it presents.
Mr Miller wishes to acknowledge the help he has received from
Professor F. de Zulueta, Mr I. A. Richmond, Mr E. B. Birley
and Miss Anne Robertson. Professor Halphen has to thank
Monsieur R. Grousset and Monsieur O. Jans^ for their collabora-
tion. Professor Alfoldi and Mr Mattingly wish to thank each
other for the benefit of much discussion on the problems connected
with their chapters. Professor Nock also wishes to record his
indebtedness to Mr Mattingly and to Monsieur F. Cumont and
Professor W. S. Ferguson. Mr J. S. Boys Smith has earned the
especial gratitude of Professor Lietzmann and the Editors for the
pains he spent on the text and notes to chapter xv. Professor Rand
wishes to thank his friends Mr B. M. Peebles and Mr A. B. Lord
for assistance in the preparation of his bibliography and the cor-
rection of proofs. Mr C. R. C. Allberry has given valuable help
with the bibliography and text of chapter xiv so far as Mani-
chaeism is concerned.
The maps have been prepared by Mr Charlesworth with the
help of the contributors whose chapters they illustrate. This is
PREFACE
ix
their purpose, and it is not claimed for them that they make
reference to an atlas superfluous. Care has been taken to secure,
as far as possible, a convenient grouping of the geographical
material, and attention is called to the consolidated Index to the
maps which appears at the end of the volume. Map 2 is based
upon the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain, with the
permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. For the
plans which accompany this volume we acknowledge the courtesy
of H. Lamartin, Brussels, for Plan i ; Propylaen Verlag, Berlin,
for Plan 2; Verlag Heinrich Veller, Berlin, for Plan 3; Verlag R.
Oldenbourg, Munich, for Plan 5. Plan 4 is taken from D. S.
Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture.
We have once more to thank Mr C. T. Seltman for his assist-
ance with the plans and for his co-operation in settling the illustra-
tions. These, together with those to Volume xi, appear in Volume
of Plates V, which he has prepared for publication at the same
time as the present volume. Our debt to him is not limited to
this, and we would acknowledge his generous help, especially in
numismatic questions, throughout the whole of our task. For
translations in this volume we have to thank him, and also Mr Boys
Smith, Professor Fletcher, Mr H. P. W. Gatty, Mr G. T. Griffith,
Mr R. D. McLellan, Mr Mattingly and Mr D. E, W. Wormell.
Professor G. B, A. Fletcher has once more prepared the
Chronological Table to the volume, and we are again indebted
to him for his vigilant reading of the text. The General Index,
Index to Maps and Index to Passages are the work of Mr J.
Stevenson of St John’s College, whose knowledge and watchful-
ness have been of great assistance to us in helping to control the
many details both of form and substance that appear in a book
of this complexity. We have advised him to omit from the General
Index certain classes of items which appeared to us to be of no
practical value, and for any such omissions we accept the responsi-
bility.
In the prefaces to previous volumes we have expressed our
thanks to the Staff of the University Press. A composite work
of this kind gives rise to problems which may make demands on
the resourcemlness of a Press, and this has been especially true
of the present volume. We have therefore good reason to appre-
ciate the unfailing helpfulness of the Staff of the Press, in this as
in other volumes, and we take our leave of them with a due sense
of gratitude.
The figure that best marks the transition from the ancient to
the medieval world is that of Constantine, and for this reason Urc
X
PREFACE
have chosen to place on the Gover his portrait from a medallion,
which is reproduced by the kind permission of the Director of
the British Museum.
S.A.C.
F.E.A.
M.P.C.
, : N.H.B.
December, iq2^
TABLE OF CONTENTS
h
)
CHAPTER ! ■■
THE ARMY AND THE- IMPERIAL HOUSE ' '
By: S. N. Miller, M.Av
I^cto.rer in Roman History and Archaeology in the University of Glasgow
• PAGE..
L The Accession of Septimius, Severus ^ • • • ' * ■■ ■ . i
Pertinax * * . ' » ' , *' ■ , 2,
Julianos: The Legions . . . ' , ' . ' * |
Severus in Rome .... . , .
IL The Civil Wars AND Parthian ExpEMTiONS . . ■ 6
The, Campaign against Niger - . ■
The First Parthian Expedition
The challenge from the West
The fall of Byzantium ...
The Campaign against Albinus
The triumph of Severus ' ' ^ * "■ ■■■ ...
The Second Parthian Expedition .
The return journey . ... ■
II L The Peisonalitv and Policy of Sbveros
Severus in Africa .
Brigandage ....
The Frontiers . ...
The personality of Severu.s; ■ ■■ .
Italy and the Provinces . . ■
Senate and Equites
Finance .....
The Praetorian Prefects ■
Militarization of government
Regimentation . ♦ • , •
The Army . . * . ' ,
The Pmus Dimm
IV. Severus and Britain
The division of Britain
The defences of Britaia
Campaigning in Scotland . ,
V. Caiacama • . , ’ ' , ' '
Ct»calla and Geta ' ■ , . .
Caracalia m Sole Ruler ^
The Tonstitutio Antoainia«t'L' ; C
*■ The wars -of Caraadk , >' ■'
eov** *~4 ^ . KTi bd >-4 so QO'<k Os4^ bs m o 00 bi O N©
XI!
CONTENTS
mcE
VL '■■■'MaCRIHUS'AN.D ElA.CABAI.TJS . '■ . , , ^ ■ :v ■ * ' 50
''An was Emperor • ■ .» , . ' ' *, • 5 ^'
Tke women of the Severan HomeEoH . . . , . * 51
Inpuius 8 acerdm Augustus . . , . , ^ 54
The death of Ekgabalns- . , , . , . . , 56
. CHAPTERTI
THE SENATE AND 'THE ARMY
By W.-Eksslin, Phil.Dr.
Professor of Ancient History in' the University of Erlangen
I,.' 'Severus x-^lexarder: Domestic PoLieY . . ' . . 57
A New Order? . ' . • • • * , *. * .. 58
Cassius Dio; the Ftia Aiexmdri . . * , . ' . , 59
Reforms . . . ■ . . , . , . ' . * . * 60
The Praetorian Prefect . , * . * ' » 61
Ulpiaii. . . , ^ ' . ' , ' ' ■ ' 7;. ^2'
The empress-mother . . . . . ' . ' . ■ 63
Finances and economy . . . . ... . 65
Public works . . . , , . . . . 66
Criminal Law . , ■ ■ . ■ ■ . ■ . . ■ , . . '67
IL Severus Alexander; Foreign Policy ■ '■ .. . , . . ' . . ■ 68
■■ The Persian danger . .»■. .■ 69
The fall of Alexander Severus . . . . . . 7 ^
HI. The first Soldier-Emperor ■ and the . Senatorial Offositiom:
Maximinus Thrax, the Gordxans, Pupienus and Baebinus . , . 72
Maximinus Thrax . ■ . ■ . ■ . . ■ / . ■ ■ " * , - ' 73
A soldier Emperor .... . . ■ . ' ,..■,74
Persecution ofthe Church' ^ ■ •»■ ■ '■ - , ■ , ■ "« ; ' • ^
Financial stress . ■' ... . ^ 76:'
The Gordiani ......... 77
The Senate, Pupienus and Balbinus . . . . . 78
The death of Maximinus and his Rivals ... . . . 80
IV. Gordian III . ^ . .■ . . . ; " . ^ V
The general direction of Policy ' ■. . . , ^ 8
'.Frontier De.feEce . . ''.'84
The work of Tim.esitheus , ■ ■. . ■ • V> : • . • ■ '^6 '
V, Philip the Arabian "i-; :: ..^■', ■..■■ *: ■■; '■ .'87'
Peace with Persia ' :■' ,■■■: .■■'"■■
Administration . * . . * . • * • * 89^
Wars on the Danube Frontier ...... 90
The Millennium of Rome * , * * • • • 9^
Further 'invasions •* .* • . . . 92
The rise of Decius ^ . 93
Christian tradition and Philip: ' ■ . . * * 94
CONTENTS
ail
CHAPTER III
^ . THE BAmmim background ■
By L. Haifheh '
Jvlembre de Fliastitut de France, Professeur k la Sorbonne
(with the collaboration of E. Gronsset and O. Jai»6)
■PAGE
I; , The mhds between the Roman Eunm aho Chiia' „ , > : . 96
The culture of Chinese Turkestan ■ . , .. , . , , ■ . 97
Contacts with the Empire ' . ' . . . . . V ■ - 98
IL , The CmiizATioN OP THE Steppes . . ■, . ' . . ■ . 99
The culture of the Steppes , . ... . ' . . 100
The art of the Nomads ■ . - . . . . 102
III. The West’waro ebb of the Barba.riah3 of the Steppes . .. 104
The Chinese Empire . . . ; . . , . . ■ . 104
The dismemberment of Chi, m ■ . ' ■ . ... . . . .... ^106
The, begi:nning of the ^ great inTOions* of the West . • * 107
CHAPTER 1 ¥
SASSANID PERSIA
By Arthur Cnm^Tm&m
Professor of Iranian Philology in University of Copenhagen,
and W, Ehsslih^
I. Till Sassamian Empire: Pomtical History . . . .109
The Rise of Ardashir . . . . . . . .109
The creation of a State Church . . . , . .111
Shapur I. . . . . . . . , .111
Shapur and Mani ... . .112
Vahmm II , . ... . . . . . * 113
IL ORCANIZATIOIf an© AOMiNISTRATlOM OF THE SaSSANIAN StATI
The structure of Sassankn Society ....
Official ........
¥t.s»I Kings, Governors . , .
1 14
114
III. Social ano Economic CbumiTioM
Tilde . . ■ *
117
117
IV. The State-Relicioh AH© Foeeigh Riuoioms . . . .118
Sii»ijaM Mazdeism . ^ ■ . . . . 118
Fiit-wowhi]^ . . .119
Ford|ii Religioiis '■ ,7^'' , « - * « .211
* Sectioni i-f awe by Tmtomt Chnsteiwmi seetios vi i« by PiofeaiQir
C.A.H. fll
CONTENTS
xiv
.men
'V. ... "'■..The^ArtS' ' , ‘
■ArcMtecture,, ■ ... ■ . ■ .. ■ • ■ ... 122
, ■■ Reliefs . , ... . ' '
.Tainting . , ■ ... ..'... '. ■ . . .• ' ' • ■ ■
VI. ..' The Persian Wars WITH Rom.e . . ^ . ... . ' .* 126
ArdasWPs earliest attacks . ... ....■ ' .. * ^^7
The .Roman connter-offensive .. .. .. ^28
. . .Shapiir’s initi.al successes and d.efeat .' . . . .. ; . . . ..* ... .' .. • ' 13 ^
The loss of Ar.menia ' .. '. .. ■' . .... „ . '. . . ^3^'.
New .invasions of the Roman Empire ■ .. :■ . ' ..* . '• ^33
The breakdown of Valerian’s defensive . . . . . ^35
Shapnr the Victorious . . . . • * • - ^37
CHAPTER V
THE INVASIONS OF PEOPLES FROM THE RHINE
TO THE BLACK SEA
By A. AlpSldi
Hon. Phil.D. (Utrecht), Profe^r of the Ancient History and
Archaeology of the Hungarian territory in the University of Budapest
I. The Movements of the Peoples on the Black Sea, Danube and
Rhine . . , . . . . . ...
138
Sarmatae and Dacians . . .
139
Carpi .....
140
Goths . .
. . . . .
.14.1
Early Gothic invasions
. . . ...
.1.42
The wars of Decius
"■'US'
The defeat and death of Decius
^ ... ....
The Goths in Asia Minor
H 7
The Goths in Greece - ... ■
'' ... ...'
149
The Battle of Naissus . . .
149
II. The Abandonment of Dacia . ' .
""..15.0..
The new strategy of Defence
'1 .co'.
The withdraw^ from Dacia
IIL The Attacks of the West Germans
^53
The Alemanni and the /m^s .
' ■ i * '
.r 54^
The wars of Aurelian ,
156
The German pressure on the Rhine
157^
Postumus on the Rhine
158
IV. The Eppeci's op Rome’s Strucgle with the Germanic World
159
The effects of the German Invasions
160
The Germans and the Empire .
XV
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
the' CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE (a.d. '249-270)
By A. Alf^ldi
■ ■; ' PAO'E'
L , ■ Introduction: The Age of Decius, Gallus and Aemidianus, . , 165,
Decius . , . . • . . , . ... . . ' 166
Gallus .. . ^ ■ , ' . , , . . . ' ' , 167
; Aemiliamis . ' , ' . . ... .. 169
IL , The Roman East from. Yaderian to.'The Accession op Aursoan 169
Valerian in tlie East ' . ' . . . 170
The capture of Valerian. . . ■ . ' ., .171,
Macrianus . ' , . . . . . ' ' . . ■ . 172
Odenathos of Palmyra.. .. .. . . ..... . 174
The death of Odenathns ' . ■ . . . . ■ ■ . 176
Zenobia . ' , , ,, 178
The Palmyrene invasion of Egypt .... . . 180
IIL The West from the Joint Reign of Vauerian and Gaelienus tO'
the Proclamation OF Aureeian . - . . ■ . ' . 181
Galiieniis in the West . . . . . . ■ 181
A year of calamity . . ' . . . . .. 182
Rebellion in the Danube Provinces . . . , .184
The rise of Postomus .. . . . ,. . ' ' . . ,185
The .claims of Fostumus , .. ., ,. . .. . . , ':i87
The ‘Gallienic Renaissance’ . . . . . . .188
The death of Gallienas ' . ''.,190
Claudius . . .. , i
QuintiHus .■ 192
IV. The Chief Political Factors 193
. The challenge of Christianity .. ' ' . ■ ' . ■ 19.4
. . The 'Senate' ..,■■■ ... . ■ ■ . ' . . '195
■ , .The infi'Uence .of the senatorial class . .■ .. . .; 197
The position of Rome ■ . . .198
The troops of the border provinces . . . . .199
The Illyrian emperors . . • . , . . . . 200
V. The State and the Church. ....... 20a
The Decian Persecution ....... 202
Sacrifice a test of loyalty ....... 204
Valerian .......... 205
Gallienus’ toleration 207
VI. The Army and its Transformation ....... 208
The Legions 208
Tkt JuxiUa . ■ . . " . . . . . 210
Tht numeri . • * 21 1
The new strategy . * , . ^ . . . . 213
%ecialist troops . . . . 215
The Cavalry . . ■ , ^ ■. . . . 216
Germans in the Army ^ » 21S
Economic elects f
XYt
CONTENTS
, .PAGE
FIL The Emperors * . , ■* , . 222
^ ^ ' ■■'/■■ • . .; . . 222
■■The picture of GaHienas . ' •*.■ ' *".: . ■■"' . « 235
Governing tendencies . . ■ . ,, . . : . . .'• 225
, The true picture; Decins . . . . , ,. . . 228
The tme picture: Galliis and Valerian * . . * . 229
The trae picture: Galliemis . ... . ... . ... .230'
, The trne picture: Clandins . . . * . ' « , 2 $!
CHAPTER ¥II
THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE
By F. Oertel, Phil.Dr.
Professor of Ancient History in the University of Bonn
L ' GoVERHING TENnEN.CIES . . . .
The prosperity of the first century ■
The economic expansion of the Empire
IL Production .. , - ...
Decentralization .
Recession in Italy . .
Advances in the newer provinces .
The older provinces . - •
III. Interchange and ■Commerce' .. . .
Italy and commerce • V •
The heirs to Italian trade * ,
Commercial interdependence
IV. Prosperity: Progress and Retrogression
Economic progress and its limits
Retarding factors . , . . '
State-socialist tendencies
V* The Burdens of State demands
Financial system ....
The growth of State claims .
VI. The Great Crisis and the Restoration
Economic decline
Inflation
Taxation
Rigid State-socialism
Currency
The breaking of the bourgeoisie
Stabilization : restoration
FIL Economic System in the State-socialistic era
Production and interchange .
State economy . • . . '
Feudal and city economy
Decline in production and trade
Limits of the decline ' . . ■ .
The reaction against Staus-iodalism
232
233
2 3 s ,.
„ 237
237
238
240
242
244
24s
247
248
249
250
252
254
256
257
258
259
260
262
263
265
266
267
269
270
271
275
274
276
278
280
CONTENTS
xvii
, CHAPTER VIO
BRITAIN-
By R, G.. -COLLINGWOOD, M.A.y F.S.A., F.B.A. , V.
Wayniete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy in the University of Oxford
PAGE
L CiTiESj. Films, Villages . . . , , „ . . *. , zBz
; The decay of the towns , . , » . . . 283
The vila-system ■. ^ . . 285
The later phase of the villas ■ - ■ ■■. '■■■■:. , , , . . . 286
IL Industries AND Traos;. ■ . . , . ,288,
Mining . . . . .■ . . 288
Pottery . ,» „ , . * , • • 290
Textile industry ■- ♦ 291
Commerce . , , „ ; . . . 292
IIL Art AND Religion . . * .■' . , ^ 293
■Art . y, > ; : ■ V'' •■■ „ '■ ■*;■■" : 293
.Religion ■.".■■'■'294,
■Praeparam imngeiim . ... * . ... . . . .: . ■ . " 296
, CHAPTER IX :
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
By H, Mattingly, MJl.
Formerly Fellow of GonviHe and Cains College, A«istant Keeper
in the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum
L AimiLiAN ^Restitutor Orbss’ . . . . v
The first tasks of AnreHan ...
Anrelian and Rome . • .
Aurelkn and the East . . . . ...
The fall of Palmyra .......
The fall of the Gallic Empire .....
Coinage reform . . .
Frontier policy . • ' • , , . ' .
Religions policy ........
The death of Anrelmn . . . - . - ^ .
Coinage of AnrelisB . ■ . _ . . ^
IL Tacitus and Flow an: Senatorial Interlude ' , .
The death of TaciHis . .
TiefaEofFlormn
III. PtoBus: Tacator Oebis^ .■ .
Ptdficatioii . . . ■ .... . ■ . '
Revolts under Frobus . * '
Administiratioii . . - . ' :*
The coinage of Probns v ■ ' ; ,
297
298
300
301
m
306
307
308
309.
310
311
312
3^3
3^3
31S
316
3 t^
.319
CONTENTS
xvi
F. ■ Carijs'anb his Sons: ‘Praesxoia Reipoblicae’
Persian war of Caras ■ . * . ' *
Nmnerian in the. East ■ . .■ .
■ Carinns in, the West • . ,
VC',, Dioceeti AN :/ Parens. Aurei SaeculP .
The personality of Diocletian
Maxlmian. . . . . , ■
'■ vThe Caesars . ; :,, ■ ■ .,. . , '■-,
The coinage of the Tetrarchy . , , *
VI. ^Qoattuor Principes Munci’ . . '
The Adventure of a British Empire
The coinage of Caransins and Allectns
Constantins in the West . ,
Diocletian in the East . . .
Rome and Persia .....
Coinage reform
Persecution
VIL Trovidentia Deorxjm, Quies Axjgustorum’
Diocletian and Gaierius
The work of Diocletian
VIIL The Second Tetrarchy: Galerius in power
Gaierius and Constantius
IX. Constantine and Maxentius: Filii Augustorum
The rise of Maxentius ....
The struggle for the West
The new rulers
The death of Gaierius ....
The coinage .....
PAGE
32 f
331
322
'■ 323
''Sn
3'24
S^5
327
■■■32.8
3.51:
33'i"
, 53 ^
334
335
336
338
339
340
340
341
342
343
CHAPTER X
THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE
By W, Ensslin
L Foundations and Development of the Absolute Monarchy . . 352
The powers of the First princeps . . . . . . 352
Charismatic authority 353
Dynastic inheritance , ... . . . « *355
IL The Divinity of the Imperial Office: God-Emperor and Em-
peror by the Grace of God . - , • • • * 35^
Tht Dmus DwiMa , . . . . , . * 35^
The divine helpmates . . . . . 357
DeusetDmmm * *■■■■., ■. * . . . * 339.
The doctrine of divine favour ■' . . . • ^60'
CONTENTS
XIX
PAGE
in. The Court AN& ITS Ceremohial. Dress and Insignia . . . . .. .•^61
' Prmkymsk . . . ' . ' . .. 362
■ ' The dress of the emperor , > . . . , ■ . '["■.$64,,
■ Imperial insignia and pomp . . . ■ f . .. '■■366'
IV. The Appointment of the Emperor; Ejection and Dynastic ■
. Experiments' , ■. . . . . . . , 367,
. The place of the Army ■. .- .. - .■ 368
DTnastic succession . . . • , • ... . . 370
Co-rnlers . . ' . . ; . .. 371
V. Emperor AND. Senate . . .. ■ . , 372
The p'OsMon of the Senate- * ■ . ■ ' . . ' ' ■ .. .; 372
The Senate and the currency . . ' . . " 373
The Senate and the Capita.I '■ ... . . . ... 374
The composition of the Senate . . . • * * 375
VI. Changes in the Administration of the Empire and- in the Arm.y . 376
The in administration . . . 377
The proieciores , . ... . . . . 378
Military changes ..... . . . . 379
The Praetorian Prefect .... . . . . 380
The departmental chiefs .... . . . 381
The staffs of the . . . . . . * . 382
.CHAPTER XI . .
: :.THE REFORMS. .OF DIOCLETIAN '...- ■- r
By W. Ensslin
L The Safeguarding of the Imperial Throne: The Succession and
Ceremonial. . . ... ... . . 383..
Angiisti and Ca'es.a.rs .- . . . ... . .. - .. . .. .384'
The position of Rome , ' . .. ... . . 386
The sanctity of the autocrat . ' . . ... , * 3^7
The . - . . . . . . .388
IL Administrative Reforms . . . ' . . * . . .389
Central administration , , , . . . . . . .389
Provincial administration . \ . . . . . , . . 390
The sabdivision of provinces . . ... , , 391
Proconsuls . . , . 392
The vicariate and dimfsts . ■ • . . . . * . , 393
Separation of military and civil authority , . . - 395
III. The Strengthening of Imperial Defence .... 396
Recrnitment *. . . ■ . ' , . . . . ’ . 396
Increase of legions ^ . . . 397
The distribution of forces * • * . • * . , • - > 39 ^
CONTENTS
PAGE
3QC
IV. ' The' Eepoem OF Taxation AND THE Reguiatioh OF THE CoiHAGE . . 399
Tke bases of taxalioE ' ' . ' , * •• ' * ■ • • ' * 4*^^
■, Methods of coleetion , . . . . . , , •« * 40!
, Taxation m Mild' ... - . . . • •' • . , • 4*^2
■Coinage reforiB ' . ■ . . . . ' . ■ ' . 403
■■■■■■, The Edict on 'Prices . . . , ■,.•■ 405
V. , CoHSERYATIVE TlNBENCiES IN DiOCEETIAn’s GOVERNMENT . ■. , . 405
Law . , . , . . ■ . . , * . 406
Religion . , , • , . * , » 407
CHAPTER XII
THE BEVELOPMENT OF PAGANISM IN, THE ROMAN EMPIRE
By A. D, Nock, M. A., Hon.XL.D. (Birmingham)
Frothingham Professor of the History of Relig,ion in Harvard 1[Jn.iYersity ,
I.
Int&oouction .
409
The first wave of Oriental cults
. , 409
Characteristics of Roman religion
' ' . '4 1' I
II.
Official Religion
412
New cults at Rome
• 4*3
Coin evidence for alien cults .
• 4*5
Alien cults in the third century
III.
The Eastern Provinces . ,
. 418
The Near East; local cults
. 4^9
Philosophic trends
. . ,421,
The Extern reaction . -
. ' ' 421
IV.
The Western Provinces . .
. . 422
Oriental cults in the West
. 4^^
The cult of Cybele
. 423
Atds, Isis, Sarapis
, . 4^,5
Syrian cults
. 427
Mithraism , . . .
. . 428
V.
Tendencies in Popular Piety .
ip .
• • 43*
Native culte
. ■ # ■ m-
. 432
Religion in the Army
• 433
Pagan theology • . •
• 435
Syncretism • . . .
m p '
• 437
VI.'
PAGANISM'," IN Thought'' ■' ■.,. ■■ . ■
p
. . 438
Plutarch and Lucian *
4 ■
• ■ 439
Aelius Aristides, Apuleius, Neopythagoreanism
« :
. , : . 440
Neoplatonism
■
,,',442
Vll.
Oriental Cults and Christianity
. * 443
Christianity and Hellenism
',, , , ’’ , -TTr,:"
The maintenance of Christian orthodoi^:' ,: „ '
. 446
Revivals and survivals of paganism
•
I;;-:;::::
• 447
VIIL Conclusion
4 '.' m .
. . 448
The limits of Orientalism
♦
•
• • 448
CONTENTS
xsi
■ CHAPTER ■XIII
' , . PAGAN ^PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHRISTIAN ..CHURCH
By tbe iate F- G. .BuRKiTTy D.D., Hoe, D.Litt. (Oxoe.), Hoa.'D,.D.'(EdmbErglij .
Dttblm aad St Andaews), Hon, B.TheoL (Breslaa), F,B.A,
Norrisian Professor of Dmaity in the University of Cambridge .
PAGE
L : The PoRMATioN OP THE Canon . ,, . .450
The Old Testament ' , ■, ♦ 451
Marcion . . . , . ^ . * "45^
IL ' MoNTANISM AND THE New PROPHECT . . . ... ' 454 '
Prophecy > ' * 45$
Montanus , . , , , . * 456
The challenge of .Montanism ' . * ■, • 4 S^
IIL ■ , The Apologists , , . ■ . . ... . ; * , • ,
The appeal of the Apologists , . . . . . , 461
A doctrine of release . ' ' ■ . • , ^ * «, ■ 462
Justin . .■ ./ . . . . . ■ , , .. 464
Tatian, Athenagoras . . ’ . . , . . ' . ,466
IV* Tee 'Gnostics • . , . . , . ' . . 467
The soma-sema doctrine . . . ■ . . . . 468
Valentinus , , , . . ■ , . ■ . , .. ■ . 469
Gnostic cosmogony . , ^ 47.1
"Sophia*,"/' ^ ■ .... ^ . ■ . .-A:;, ' ,v' .... ,' *' ..' • 47 ^
-The. ^pmfjpkmsf Join and...Basilides , ..; „* , 473'
V. IEENAEOS..., ^
/TheT/r^i>ii‘':of'Ireme'U.s ■ " *’,.'475
CHAPTER, XIV
THE. CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE'.EASW
' By F.,C..BTOiciTT
L Greemfearing Christianitt . , ' . . , , . 476
Julius Africantis 477
The Alexandrian School , . , . . . .478
Clement of Alexandria . • . ' . . ' . 479
Origen ^ . . . .481
The Hixaph . . . . . 4^4
The €mim Celsum . . . . . . - .485
Dionysius of Alexandria . ' ■ . . ' . ^ . 487
The churches of Asia Minor . . . . 48S
Firmilmn , . . . *„'*■. . . , 489
Paul of Sam«ata 490
» Additions to «ctiom i-iii of this chapter have been made by Profea»r J. M. Ciwd*
» Additions to section t of this chapter have been made by Pmfewor Creed.
XXI!
CONTENTS
II Striac-speaicing 'Christianity , ■
, ... .Tatian’s Bmtessaron ' . , ■
..Bardaisau , . . ' * ' '
'S;^riac 'asceticism * ■,
Aphraates and Ephraim
"" ...'Rabbnla , . - . ' . ■
IIL Manx and the Manichees
The documents of Mani
' M'anfs cosmogony ' ,
Mani and Jesus' ■
Christianity and Manichaeism
The Elect and the Hearers
The Manichaean * Confession’
Mankhee 'hymns
PAGE
492
493
49*^
499
501
502
■504'
504
.505
■.50S
,509
,5I.G'
Sn
S43
CHAPTER XV
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WEST
By Hans Lietzmann, Hon. D.TheoL (Bonn), Hon. Dr.PhiL (Jenay Athens)
Professor of Church History in the University of Berlin
L The Christian Persecutions . . . . . . . 515
Anti-Christian sentiment . . ... . . 516
Early Martyrdoms and Jcta . . . . . . . 518
■ Early Persecutions , , ■ , . . . ■ . . 4 . . . 5:19
The Decian Persecution .. ■. . . . • . ■ 521
Toleration . . . . . . . . .522
■Hr' ■ '."'T he ■Inner .'Life' op'THE Church ■■ .■■■',■ ... . , '523
The Sunday service 523
The Early Eucharist . . , . . . . .524
The development of the Eucharist 526
^Passover.and .Easter ■■ ■.. :■ . .:■ ■ . ^ ' ■■ '■ , '. ■. ■ 528';
The Catacombs 529
■III.'', '.TEg^"'EoMAN; C hurch, '■' 'v:- , :..■ '■^ , , . .. ' ',53 '0'^
■'■ The ■Roman 'S^ec"" ■,,■.,■ ■■ . ...■.■: v ■ ■.^ ■ ■■":.. ■■ .■■■ ■■ ■ . " ■■■■;■ ,•■■■■■■'■ S'J.!'
The claim of the Roman church .532
Theological conflicts . , 553
■Hippolytus .......... 534
Fabian ...■ ' '■ . '//'vv . 7 , ■ ' 53^^^
IV. Rome Am Carthage
The African church : TertuHian
Cyprian . .
Novatian ....
V. Rome AN 0 Ajeexanoria .
The acceptance of Roman authority
536
536
S3®
539
142:
^543-
CONTENTS
xx:iii
CHAPTER XVI
, , THE TRANSITION’ TO, LATE^CMSSICAL ART
By G. Eodenwaldt, PhiL Dr.
Professor of Classical Archaeology ia the University of Berlin
L : Feom SipTiMitrs Sey.ee.iis TO Eiaoabalus , . .
Antonine aiid Sevems.'Portraitiire .. ■ ...
' Historical reliefs . . .... .
Influences from without the .Empire ■. \ .
Sarcophagi . . . .... . .
Painting in the Catacombs . . ■ . . ,
Architecture . . . . ■ . . . , .
II. From Severus Alexanper to the Accession-of Diocletian '■
A new fashion of portraiture . . ... '.. . ,
The battle-sarcophagi , . • • ...
Baroque: the art of Treves .
The ‘Gailienic. Renaissance’, ' . . . ,
Other sarcophagi . . .
Sassanian and Roman Art . . . . , . , .
Miniatures: Architecture ......
III. From DiocLETiAN to the Fovmmc of Constantinople
Transition to the *' Late-Classical ■ ..... .... ■ .
The later sarcophagi . . . . . . .
The Arch of Constantine . . . . . .
The Architecture of the Tetrarchy . ...; ^
The Christian Basilica . . . .
PAGE
544
545
546
548
549
55°
5SI
5S2
552
553
556
556
561
5^2
564
566
567
569
CHAPTER XVir
THE LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST FROM
THE ANTONINES TO CONSTANTINE
By E. K. Rand, A.M.j Pli.D*rHon. Xltt.B. pidanchester, TiiB.ity;ColIegei» DaHls,
Western Reserre), .Hon. .LL.,D. .(Glasgow^ ■
Pope Professor of Latin in tlie University of Harvard
I. Ihtropuctioh .
IL The Age op the Antomihes . ■ . . ■ . . , . . sja
Fronto as teacher . . . . • • - * *574
Fronlo as stylist ......... 575
Fronto as critic , . . . 576
AulusGellius 577
Apuleius . . 579
TmMimm&^Msis , » . 582
Antonine poete . . ■ . . .. , 584
The Pimigiimm Femm , . . / . •, • •
xxiv
III.
CONTENTS
The Age of the Seveei and the Rise of Christian Latin Literati
' RACE
js,e'
„ Tke Sever! and letters . . . ...
. 588
' , Tertullian .
• 590
Tke style of Tertuilian . ' . ■
• 592
, S. Perpetiia
■ 594
Minucius Felix . . . * . - ^
■ , .. . ■
■ 595
IV.
From the Severi to Valerian .
• 597
Tht Ju^stan Hisiwy . , . . ' .
• 599
Cyprian , . . . «
. 600
Novatian . ■ . ■ . ■ ■ .
602
Commodian •
■ 603
V.
From Valeriah TO Diocletian .■
60s
Nemesian . ,
*
. 60s
VI.
From Diocletian to Constantine ■ . ■ * .
*■' * *
, 606
Araobios , . « . . ' ■ .
. 607
Lactandiis * . . .
. 609
CHAPTER XVIII
LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE
EASTERN HALF OF THE EMPIRE
By J. Bidez
Membre de i’Acaddmie Royale de Belgique, Hon. D.Litt. (Athens, Brussels, Lille,
Paris, Utrecht), F.B.A., Professeur ^mirite de rUniversitS de Gand
I.
The Greek Novel and Rhetoric
• *
. > * ,'6ii
Tke circle of Julia Domna
. . . 613
Pkilostratus ....
... 61.4
Heiiodorus; Da^^ms and Ckl&i
. . dis
Metkodins , , . . ,
. . . diy
Longinus
. 618
■ Dexippus,'' v'.
619
II.
Alexandria: Plotinus
. . . 619
Atkenaeus . . * , .
. . . 620
Al^andrian learning
. 621
Ammonius Saccas
. . . 622
Plotinus . . . * •
. . .623
Plotinus’ natural pkilosopliy *
. 624
Plotinus’ contemplation
. 626
III.
Porphyry .
. 629
Porpkyry as interpreter .
. 630
Porpkyiy’s polemic
. . . 631
Porpkyry as savant
634
IV.
• • • *535
Tke mobilization of paganism
. . . 636
lambiickus tkeurge , ♦
-
. . . 638
CONTENTS
xx¥:
¥*: Christian Apoiogetics: EusEBstJS ; *. .
Eusebios as liistorian , . . ' * * ■ *
Eusebius as ckronographer . ■ ' ■ * ,
Eusebius’ polemic • :• ■ * • •
Eusebius and the Empire . ^ .
CHAPTER XIX
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
By N. H, Baynes, M.A., Hon. D.D. (St Andrews), F.B.A*
Professor of Byzantine History in the Unipersity of .London
L ' The Attitude of Philosop.hers to CH.RisTiANiTy
The final fusion . . . *
The Christian Apologetic
Porphyry the pagan reformer ' ■ .
Lactantius, Ainobius . . ■ . •
IL State AND Church . ' . . , . ■ ' , ' . , . 654
The standpoint of the State . . . . . 654
The Persecution of Decks , . 656
Toleration . . ... . . . . . . 659
The loyalty of the Christian . ■ . . 660
III*' Diocletian’s Policy . ■ * ,.66i'
Christians and the Army ' * 662
Galerius and the Persecution 664
IF. The Persecution . . . . . ' . . ■ . .665
■ ■ .' . The Vicenaalia'.. .;■■■ ... ■■■■■'. -. 667 :
■ The policy .of .Diocletian . . ... ... ... ■.668.
The ‘Palinode’ of Galerks .671
The death of Galerius 673
Roman governors and Christians ' . . ' . . . - 675
The failure of the Persecution . . . ■ • • ♦ 677
CHAPTER XX
CONSTANTINE
By N. H. Baynes
L The Rise of Constantine ....... 678
The Persecution in the West ^ . . . . 679
Constantine invades Italy . . . . . - .681
The Vision of the Cross . ■ ..... 683
IL COMSTANtlNI AN© CHtlSTlANm ' . . 6S4
Consiantine and the 685
Persecution in the East . ' • , . , . . . . 687
• The victory of liciniiis . 689
646
647
649
651:
652
xxvi
, CONTENTS
PAGE
III.
, Constantine ,ANi> Licmius ' , *■ . . ■
691
' Co,nstanti.ne and the Donatists
. ' , . 692
" The'de,feat ofLicimnS' ■.
■ . 695
IV.
Constantine' and the Church . . . • , , •
696
The Council of Nicaea . . . ,■
• • 697
The beginning of the Middle Age . . . ' , .
. 699
EPILOGUE , . ' . . " . . . . ,, . 700
APPENDIX ON SOURCES; A ^ . .. . 710
NOTES: ,
1. The sources for, the Gothic Inwsions of the jears 260-270 . . , 721
2. Herodianus, king of Palmyra . ... . . 724
3. Inflation ill the second and third cento ries . . . . 724
LIST OF, ABBREVIATIONS . . . .. 726
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
General Bibliography . . .
Chapter I
Chapter II ... .
Chapter III . . . . .
Chapter IV
Chapters V-VI
Chapter VII ......
Chapter VIII . . . • . ■ .
: Chapter IX ■ ; : ' . ■ ■■ . .
Chapter X , . ' . , . ■ . . " ■ ■ . . ■
Chapter XI ,
Chapter XII ......
Chapters XIII-XV . . ■ .
Chapter XVI . . . ...
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
GENERAL INDEX . ' .
INDEX TO MAPS . , . ...
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED 'TO
73 ^
735 .
738
74Tf
746
7 SO
755
756
760
762
764
767
778
780
784
789
796
Sot
83.
827
CONTENTS
.''xx¥ii
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS:
I. Asia Minor, Armenia and North 'Syria . . ' .
. .FACIHG.PAGE' . I
2. The Roman Empire: the Western proTinces . .
. n''
' .11
3, Roman Africa . . . . '
-■ . 53 >
: ,19
4. Roman Britain .
..'■■37
5, Roman Britain : the frontier country
* ... . ■ j.
42
6. The Roiiian Empire; the Eastern proidnces
' . !>?.
8s
, 7. The Ancient Far East . .
• . . . $>
97
8. The Sassanian Empire'.
'■>■...; ... n
109
9, Decius and the Goths . ■ *" ■ ' . ; ' ■» :
* *; ft
164
10. The Empire under Diocletian . : v .
* ' ■ n
408
Plans . ' . , ■ ... ... . ■ ■ . ■ . ' ■
• ■ * tf
570
Chronological Table .■■■ . A .
AT EKD
CHAPTER I
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE
I. THE ACCESSION OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
C OM MODUS had left no heir behind him, and with his
death ^ the line of the Antonines came to an unworthy end.
As the conspirators had anticipated, the Senate promptly annulled
his acts and condemned his memory. Nor did the Praetorian Prefect
Laetus misjudge senatorial feeling when he induced the Guard
to proclaim as successor the City Prefect, P. Helvius Pertinax.
An Italian of humble origin, Pertinax had won his way into the
Senate after a varied military experience as an eques. Under
Marcus Aurelius he had commanded a legion on the Upper
Danube, and for distinguished service there had been rewarded
with the consulship. After holding consular commands under
Marcus in Moesia and in Syria, he had been sent by Commodus
to govern Britain, where he had sternly repressed a mutiny of
the troops, and thereafter he had been appointed proconsul of
Africa, where an outbreak of disorder called for a strong hand. It
was not a career that gave the Praetorians any reason to expect
a continuance of the licence which they had recently enjoyed,
but they had no candidate of their own, and the promise of
a donative of twelve thousand sesterces apiece overcame their
hesitation. By the Senate Pertinax was at once accepted as a man
who seemed likely to resume the policy of the earlier Antonines,
while his military achievement and reputation commanded the
respect of the frontier armies.
At sixty-six years of age he could not be expected to have a long
reign, but there was the hope that if he took advantage of the
Note. To the principal litera^ sources, Cassius Dio, Hezndian, and the
Scriptores Historiae Augustae (S.H.A.), references are given in the footnotes
only where it is desired to emphasize a piece of evidence or to draw attention
to the terms in which it is expressed. The references to Dio foUow the book-
divisions as given above the left-hand pages of Boissevain’s edition. For Latin
inscriptions references are ^ven to CJ.l.,, Epk Ep., or Ann. ipig.^ossAy for
inscriptions not conuined in Dessau. In coin references M.-S. mdicajto
Mattingly and Sydenham, The Roman Imperial Coinage. See for coins Vol-
ume of Plates V, where :dso will be found (i86, 230) portraits of Several
C^racalla and Elagabalus. ^ Dn 31 December jga (wd. 3 ® 3 )*
cjuH.xn 'Vv; I
2
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
general goodwill to secure a settlement of the succession, he might
introduce a period of stable government, as another sexagenarian
emperor had done, after the assassination of Domitian, by the
adoption of Trajan. Unlike Nerva, Pertinax had a son of his own,
and the Senate itself proposed that he should be given the title of
Caesar. But the lad was young, and Pertinax did not feel that his
own position was yet assured, and he rejected the proposal as pre-
mature^. On 6 March 1 93 the Prefect of Egypt, L. Mantennius
Sabinus, issued orders for a general festival of fifteen days to mark
the accession of the new imperial family^. The belated celebration
can hardly have run its course, at least in the remoter parts of
Egypt, before the Emperor was dead, with the succession still
unsecured, and, judged by what followed, he must be likened not
to Nerva but to Galba.
Between the reigns of Pertinax and Galba there is a resemblance
also in the causes which cut them short. The follies of Commodus
had been as serious a drain upon the imperial treasury as the ex-
travagance of Nero, and that at a time when the sources of revenue
were tending to shrink. An attempt made by Pertinax to stimulate
commerce by lightening the customs duties and to encourage the
cultivation of waste land by granting titles of ownership, with
exemption from taxation for ten years®, appears to indicate a posi-
tive and comprehensive policy to increase, or restore, the resources
of the Empire. But a scheme of this kind required time, whereas
the personal and public economies by which he endeavoured to
relieve the immediate situation made themselves unpleasantly felt
at once by those who were directly aifected by them, notably the
personnel of the palace. To the Praetorians he seems to have
paid the promised donative^, but he put a stop to practices of
petty plundering in which they had been indulged by Com-
modus, and he attempted to enforce a strict discipline. Laetus,
still Praetorian Prefect, was chagrined to discover that he had
chosen a master instead of a tool, and he so worked upon the mis-
giving of his men that, on 28 March, a party of them marched
^ Dio Lxxir, 7- At the same time he refused the title of Augusta for his
wife, Flavia Titiana. Neither wife nor son figures in the Roman coinage,
hut both appear in the coinage of Alexandria, the one as Augusta, the other as
Caesar ^ogt. Die Alexandrinischen Munzen, i, p. 158). Cf. Dessau 410.
® Wiicken, Chrest. 490.
* Known only, however, from Herodian ii, 4, 6. In the reign of Severus
the occupation of waste land, at least on imperial domains in Amca, was still
r^ulated by the lex Hadriana de rudihus agris et iis qtd per X anms continuos
multi smt (Brans, Fontes^^ i i 5 )*
* Dio ixxiv, 5, 4.
I, I] PERTINAX: JULIANUS: THE LEGIONS 3
to the palace, and presently descended into the City streets dis-
playing the head of the Emperor whom they had proclaimed
eighty-seven days before. In spite of the brevity of his reign,
Pertinax had made a lasting impression as a model of a constitu-
tional ruler, and in the confused movements that followed his
death his name became the symbol of a policy.
The Prefect of the City, T. Flavius Sulpicianus, who had en-
joyed a brief experience of palace life as the father-in-law of
Pertinax, was intriguing with the Praetorians for the succession
when a rival presented himself in another elderly senator, M.
Didius Julianus, a man of more dubious reputation but greater
wealth. This was an opportunity which the Praetorians knew how
to exploit. They put the Empire up to auction between the two
until they had extorted from Julianus the promise of a donative of
25,000 sesterces apiece. It was a simple matter to intimidate the
Senate into ratifying the bargain. The City populace resented
being so disposed of, but they were a helpless mob, and their only
hope was that the Praetorians’ behaviour would remind the
frontier armies that ‘an emperor could be made elsewhere than at
Rome.’
Their expectations were centred chiefly in the governor of
Syria, C. Pescennius Niger. They were not disappointed; he was
proclaimed emperor by his legions as soon as the situation at
Rome was known in the East. But by this time the governor of
Upper Pannonia, P. Septimius Severus, had already got himself
proclaimed by the troops at his headquarters at Carnuntum
(13 April)^. The conflict of ambitions was reinforced by the
mutual jealousy of the two armies, confirmed by a long period of
local recruiting. A repetition of the disaster of a,d, 69 seemed
inevitable.
Since that date, however, the distribution and composition of
the frontier legions had changed. With nine legions, including the
legion in Egypt^ the army of the East remained much the same,
but the Rhine army had been reduced from seven legions to four,
and its unity had been affected by the closer association of the
legions on the Upper Rhine with the troops on the Upper
Danube since the construction of the limes between the two rivers.
On the other hand, the Danube army had been increased from
seven to twelve legions by the frontier poliqr of successive em-
perors, and whereas in the first century it had been drawn partly
from Italy and the latin West^ partly from the Greek-speaking
^ Idthm Jprilibm, a correction generaJUy acxepted for the impossible «iAur
^ugustis of S.H.A. Sev. 5, l, . . " ; , N jm, ■,’> ' /
4 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
population of Macedonia and the Asiatic provinces, it was now
recruited almost entirely from the Danube area. The legions from
end to end of the river were united in the support of Severus^, and
their strength and position put the initiative in their hands.
At the time of his proclamation Severus took the name of
Pertinax as a cognomen, and represented himself as his avenger.
This was intended to conciliate the Senate, as a preliminary to the
attainment of his first objective, which was to take advantage of his
proximity to the capital to secure constitutional investiture and to
gain control of the central machinery of administration and finance.
By the time news of his departure from Carnuntum reached Rome
he had already advanced by forced marches into North Italy.
Julianus thereupon induced the Senate to proclaim him a public
enemy, and attempted to put the City into a state of defence. But
he had not the power to command obedience or enforce discipline,
and in desperation he prepared to barricade himself within the
palace. He put Laetus to death, and with him Marcia (vol. xi,
p. 383), on suspicion of favouring the enemy, and then himself
opened negotiations with Severus. But by now Severus was master
of the situation in Italy. At Rome itself the Praetorians made it
known to the Senate that they were in correspondence with the man
whom it had just declared a public enemy, and the Senate, which
had hitherto been content to watch the despairing efforts of J ulianus
with a malicious aloofness, now judged it opportune to condemn
him to death and to recognize Severus as emperor. On i June
Julianus was killed in the palace by a soldier. Soon after Severus
entered Rome with his entire force in full armour. It was a
ceremonial announcement of the power and spirit that were now
to direct the government.
As part of the manifesto, however, Severus himself, in con-
formity with the ancient rule, had dismounted at the City gates and
changed into civil dress. This was a display of deference to the
Senate and People of Rome. Besides granting a donative to his
troops, he sought to win the favour of the populace by a liberal
distribution, and at a meeting of the Senate he took an oath, as
Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian had done, not to put any of its
members to death without bringing the case before it, and even
had this procedure formulated as a rule in a senatus consuhum. His
. policy, he promised, would be that of Marcus Aurelius : informers
would not be encouraged; and he would be a Pertinax not only in
All the Danube legions figure in Severus’ osinage of 193 except the
Vindobona legion, X Gemina. If this legion hesitated to follow the lead of
Carnuntum, its hesitation can only have been momentary.
SEVERUS IN ROME
1 . 1 ]
5
name but in goodwill to their order. It was a kind of ritual sanct-
ion to this declaration that he then celebrated in full form the
apotheosis of Pertinax, which the Senate had decreed when it
condemned Julianus to death.
Some of the older senators, who had long known Severus,
doubted his sincerity. At all events, his professions are an indica-
tion of the importance which he attached at this time to the civil
power. He had heard the expected news that Niger had been pro-
claimed emperor by the Syrian legions, and Niger, he knew, was
popular in the City. During the absence in the East which he now
anticipated, he had no desire to see turned against him the organs
of the central government which he had marched into Italy to
secure. But he did not rely entirely upon conciliatory methods.
He put to death, or proscribed, those who had been active part-
isans of Julianus, and in acting through the Senate in this matter
he was not only fulfilling his promise but was bringing home to it
a warning of what his enemies might expect.
He knew, however, that his position in the capital depended
less on the Senate than on the troops stationed there. Before
entering the City he had summoned the Praetorians to meet him
unarmed, had surrounded them with his legionaries and dismissed
them with ignominy. That he was not simply punishing the
murderers of Pertinax was presently shown by the manner in
which he reconstituted the Guard, now increased to 15,000 men.
Hitherto admission to its ranks had been a privilege confined to
natives of Italy and of the romanized communities of Spain,
Noricum and Macedonia; henceforth it was to be recruited from
the frontier legionaries, and in re-forming it Severus selected the
pick of the men from his own Danube legions^.
Outside Italy there were two formidaHe groups of legions in
the West. These were the four legions stationed on the Rhine and
the three legions which formed the garrison of Britain. By this
time the Rhine legions had declared for Severus^, but in Britain
the situation was still doubtful. The governor there, D. Clodius
Albinus, was suspected of entertaining ambitious hopes with which
his army was believed to sympathize; and it was known that there
were many in the Senate who would welcome his intervention. An
agreement was reached by which Albinus accepted from Severus
the position of Caesar, which was formally conferred upon him
^ See the lists of Praetorians in C.I.L, p, 32533 (a.»- 209) — 36-38
(a.d. 212-4). .
® All four are included in the ledoaary types of the coinage of 193. They
must be the Gailkam exerdtm ofS.H,A. Sev. 5> 3* . :: : t r
6 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
by the Senate and commemorated on the coinage^. Severus must
have had reason to suppose that this arrangement, which carried
with it a presumptive right of Succession, satisfied Albinus, for his
own immediate design was to have his hands free to meet the
challenge in the East, where Niger had now had two months to
make his preparations.
But before leaving Rome there was another precaution to take.
So long as Niger had the support of the Egyptian army, he was in
a position, like Vespasian in 69, to restrict the corn-supply, and if
he were able to extend his control to the corn-growing districts of
Africa, the capital would be in a serious position. To prevent this,
Severus seems to have ordered detachments of the legion III
Augusta to proceed from the Numidian frontier to the more
eastern parts of the African province^, where their presence would
not only protect the corn-supply but also, by threatening Egypt,
prevent the legion there, II Traiana, from sending any effective
help to Niger.
II. THE CIVIL WARS AND PARTHIAN EXPEDITIONS
Early in July 193 Severus left Rome by the Flaminian Way to
follow the road that led to the Danube at Singidunum and Vimi-
nacium and thence through Upper Moesia to Thrace. He selected
this northern route in order to keep in touch with the forces dis-
posed along the Danube, and to call out the full strength they
could mobilize for the Eastern campaign. But it was not the
shortest route to the East, and there w'as the danger that Niger
might block his passage to Asia by occupying Byzantium, and
even turn his whole position by moving upon Rome along the Via
Egnatia, the direct route from Byzantium to the Adriatic. To
meet this danger orders were sent to the legions in Moesia to
march direct into Thrace, while part of the Illyrian army which
had been led into Italy may have been shipped across the Adriatic
to Dyrrhachium to advance eastwards by the Via Egnatia®. As it
happened, the governor of Asia, Asellius Aemilianus, had already
1 M.-S. IV, i, pp. 40-2; Herodian n, 15, 1-5. An offer of the position of
Caesar may well have been sent to Albinus, as Dio implies (lxxiv, 15, i),
brfore Severus reached Rome. For the position of Albinus after his recog-
nition as Caesar, see C. R. Van Sickle, Class. Phil, xxin, 1928, p. 123.
* This appears to be the meaning of S.H.A. Sev. 8 , 7. The legion
III Augusta is not given a place in the legionary coin-types, but it had prob-
ably received the title ‘pia vindex’ by 194-195 (C.I.L. viii, 17726).
® For the transport of a force of legionaries by sea cf. Herodian h, 14, 7;
ni, I, I. In S.H.A. Sev. 8, 12, Gmeda may mean Macedonia.
I, u] THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST NIGER 7
occupied Byzantium for Niger, and was advancing upon Perinthus,
when the first of the Severan troops arrived^. These were defeated
with heavy loss, but Aemilianus was not in a position to maintain
control of the straits, and he withdrew to Byzantium. To mask the
Stronghold a siege corps was detached under the command of one
of the legionary legates of Lxjwer Moesia, Marius Maximus^,
while a force was transported across the Propontis to Cyzicus.
There Aemilianus, who had recrossed the Bosporus to intercept
it, was defeated and killed.
Having thus gained a footing in Asia, the Severan army ad-
vanced eastwards into Bithynia, whence the main roads crossed
the peninsula to Cilicia and Syria. The news of the battle of
Cyzicus had made the province waver in its support of the Eastern
claimant, and Nicomedia declared for Severus, while its neigh-
bour and rival, Nicaea, became the headquarters of Niger. A force
sent forward from there to hold the pass that ran along the southern
shore of the Ascanian lake between Cius and Nicaea was decisively
defeated. It was now the beginning of 194®.
The victorious army was commanded by Severus’ general,
Tiberius Claudius Candidus^, and it would appear that the force
led by Severus himself through Pannonia and Upper Moesia had
not reached Bithynia in time to take part in the battle. Its arrival
not long after is the probable explanation of a sudden move on the
part of Niger; he withdrew to Syria to raise reinforcements,
making no further attempt to hold the route across Asia Minor
beyond leaving a force to defend some fortifications which he had
already erected on Mt Taurus in the narrow pass of the Cilician
Gates. The Severan army, now at full strength, must have arrived
there by March (i 94). Swollen by the spring rains and the melting
of the snow, the stream which flowed through the defile swept away
the fortifications. The position was at once abandoned by its de-
fenders, and the Severan army descended into the plain of Issus.
In Syria, Niger had found that his retirement was regarded as
an acknowledgment of defeat, and he was distracted there by the
dissensions and jealousies that discover themselves in a failing
cause. Laodicea, envious of the favour enjoyed by its rival
Antioch as the headquarters of Niger, declared for Severus,
^ Presumably the advance-guard of the Moesian army, perhaps to be
identified with the vexillatimes Perinthi pergentes of Dessau 1 141.
2 Dessau 29:55.
® With the viaory at Nicaea Severus becomes Imp. III. He is so styW in
a military diploma of 31 January 194 (/fm. iptg. 1908, no, 146)., . < , > .
: Dessau Ti40fcf. Dio Lxxv, 6, -
8
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
and by the same venture Tyre sought to win a future advantage
over its rival Berytus. Both cities were heavily punished for anti-
cipating the course of events. But by now misgiving had spread to
the troops, or their commanders, in more than one of the Eastern
provinces, and Niger could no longer count on the legion in Egypt
or on the legion in Arabia.^ For reinforcements he had to look to
Syrian volunteers, and especially to the townsmen of Antioch, and
it was with a motley host that he set out for the north on hearing
that Severus had passed the Cilician Gates. His army did itself no
discredit on the plain of Issus, where the final battle of the war
was fought, but in the end victory rested with the Illyrian legion-
aries. It would now be about April of 1 94'^. Niger rode back to
Antioch, but fled from the city when it surrendered. According
to Dio, he was making for the Euphrates in the hope of finding
refuge with the Parthians when he was overtaken and killed. By
the order of Severus his head was sent to Byzantium to be dis-
played to the townsmen as an invitation to cease fighting for a
cause already lost, but they continued to man their walls and for
two years more postponed their punishment.
Meanwhile Severus was in Syria distributing rewards and
penalties. Laodicea becomes a ‘colonia’ with the lus Italictim.
The elevation of Laodicea was the humiliation of Antioch, which
was indeed ‘attributed’ to the rival city*, which now displaced it,
though not for long, as the official capital of Syria. The Pales-
tinian city of Neapolis forfeited its political existence for its sup-
port of Niger. Cities which had supplied him with funds had to
pay a fine of four times the amount, while those which had suffered
by resisting him, such as Laodicea and Tyre, were handsomely
indemnified. Senators who had favoured his cause had their pro-
perty confiscated and were banished, while his adherents in general
were treated with merciless severity, until it was found that
refugees from his army were being driven across the Tigris to
take service with the barbarians, whereupon a general amnesty
was declared. Many of these refugees were skilled mechanics who
^ For the recognition of Severus in Egypt by February, cf. Wilcken,
Chrest. 96, pag. iv, I. 6; B.G.U. 326. C.l.L. in, 6580, shows him (as
Imp. HI) in control of the Egyptian legion, II Traiana, before the battle of
Issus. L. Mantennius Sabinus, who had been Prefect of Egypt since 193
(Chrest. 49 o)j continued in his office by Severus (I.G.R.R. 1, 1062).
The same is true of the governor of Arabia, P. Aelius Severianus Maximus
(Dessau 5842; C.l.L. nr, 13612, etc.).
® On this vexed question see G. A. Harrer, in y.R.S. x, 1920, pp. 1 62—8,
whose conclusions are here adopted.
® Herodian in, 6, 9. ^
I, n] THE FIRST PARTHIAN EXPEDITION 9
taught their new masters the use of armour and the manufacture
of arms. By such instruction, Herodian notes, the Romans made
the barbarians more formidable enemies. It is a remark that
admits of a wide and various application to the history of the
Roman frontiers, but the incident has more than a military sig-
nificance: it shows that the imperial frontiers, long before they
failed as military lines, were ceasing to be spiritual boundaries.
There had been correspondence between Niger and the Parthian
king, one of whose vassals, Barsemius of Hatra, had sent Niger a
force of archers. It was not only the military integrity of the
Empire that Severus was vindicating when, after his triumph over
his rival, he led an army across the Euphrates.
There were indeed good military reasons for the expedition.
The Parthian king, Vologases IV, had held out promises to Niger,
but had not sent him any actual help. Apparently he saw another
way of profiting by the civil war, and we may recognize his in-
fluence at work in an attempt made by certain of his vassals to
shake off the control which the Roman government had exercised
in Mesopotamia ever since the expedition of Lucius Verus. Roman
garrisons in Mesopotamia had been taken prisoner, the important
stronghold of Nisibis had been besieged, and Osrhoene had re-
nounced Roman suzerainty. Severus decided to take advantage
of the occasion, and of the internal weakness of Parthia at this
time, to make a settlement of the Eastern frontier by resuming, in
some measure, the annexationist policy of Trajan. He may have
crossed the Euphrates about September*- (194). By the early part
of 195 he had punished Osrhoene for its defection by reducing it
to a province under the charge of a procurator^. Having advanced
eastwards to Nisibis, he ordered his generals to overrun the terri-
tory of the Skenite, or Mesopotamian, Arabs, and then sent them
upon an expedition across the Tigris into Adiabene. Before the
end of August he had assumed the titles of Arabicus and Adia-
benicus®.
Besides making Osrhoene a province, he had prepared for the
formation of a province between Osrhoene and the Tigris by the
erection of Nisibis into a colony and the establishment there of a
resident procurator; and the fact that the titles Arabicus and
Adiabenicus, when first conferred, were each combined with the
1 The dry season; cf. Db ixxv, 2 (p. 339 Boissevain).
® This would be the ocrasion of his assumpdon of the style Imp, F, the
first of three salutations of 195. Fot a prx. provinc. Osrhognae in the reign of
Severus cf. Dessau 1353. , . " , '
® Dattari, Num. Jug. JUx. 3986. : ‘ ! '
10
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
title of Parthicus (Parthicus Arabicus, Parthicus Adiabenicus) in-
dicates that the operations of 19^ were regarded as steps towards
a settlement of the whole problem of Parthia and the Eastern
frontier. But before the end of the year 'Parthicus’ disap{)ears
from each of the titles, as if the Emperor thought it politic to
withdraw the implied threat to Parthia^, He even gives up the
idea of holding the newly added province of Osrhoene, which he
restores to the native ruling family of the Abgars. The reason of
this sudden suspension of his plans was that all available troops
were wanted for the West, from which he had received disquieting
reports of Albinus.
To Severus, who had two sons and a wife as ambitious as him-
self, the arrangement by which the governor of Britain became
Caesar and presumptive successor can only have been a temporary
device to ensure himself against a challenge in the West while he
carried on his Eastern campaigns. Albinus, on the other hand,
appears to have hoped that Severus would not go back on their
agreement, which he himself seems to have accepted from a
genuine desire to avoid an appeal to arms; and he would probably
have allowed Severus to continue undisturbed to complete the
settlement of the Parthian problem if he had been left to his own
devices. But the very qualities which inclined him to accept the
position assigned to him by Severus invited interference by the
Senate. The two men were both Africans, but with a difference.
Severus, though he had senatorial connections, was of a native
family of no more than equestrian rank, and he himself had
aroused misgiving in the Senate by his character and pretensions,
whereas Albinus belonged to the senatorial nobility by descent,
and he had been an obedient pupil in the school of Marcus
Aurelius, whose policy of deference to the Senate he might be
expected to resume. And intervention by the Senate was en-
couraged by the knowledge that the British legions, as they had
shown in the reign of Commodus, were ready to proclaim a candi-
date of their own®. It soon became known to Severus that leading
senators were in correspondence with Albinus, and were urging
him to march to Rome. Before the end of 195 Albinus h imself
had realized that Severus had no intention to abide by their agree-
ment, and he committed himself to a declared hostility by taking
^ Cf. S.H.A. Sev. 9, 1 1. Parthicus Arabicus and Parthicus Adiabenicus
reappear in the inscription on the arch of Severus at Rome, dedicated in 203,
but there the Imperial titles are peculiar in this respect as in others. Cf.
Dessau 425.
® See Vol. XI, p. 384,
n
I, n] THE CHALLENGE FROM THE WEST
measures to secure his position. Severus’ reply was to have him
proclaimed a public enemy by the army in Mesopotamia. With
this act a new civil war begins. The news had reached Rome by
1 5 December, when the people assembled in the Circus made an
organized demonstration against the prospect that now confronted
them. It cannot have been long after this that Albinus was pro-
claimed Augustus by his troops.
It was probably during this first period in the East^ that Severus
took the precaution of dividing Syria with its army of five legions
into two provinces, Syria Coele (north Syria, including Commagene)
with two legions, and Syria Phoenice (south Syria) with one.
Before he left for the West he received the news that Byzantium
had fallen. This was not now a very important event in itself, but
it gave him an opportunity of displaying to his army a good omen
for the success of the coming campaign against Albinus and of
giving to his enemies a conspicuous warning. In 1 93 Bjrzantium
had opened its gates to Aemilianus, and Severus now ordered its
magistrates, as well as the soldiers within its walls, to be put to
death; and besides confiscating the property of its citizens, he
deprived it of its ‘ free ’ status, and indeed ‘ attributed ’ it to Perinthus
as he had ‘attributed’ Antioch to Laodicea, To complete its
humiliation he razed the principal buildings and demolished its
walls. By this, Dio complains, he ‘destroyed a Roman strong-
hold and base of operations against the barbarians from the
Pontus and from Asia.’ But no one knew better than Severus the
military value of Byzantium, and the restoration of the city was
begun as soon as the demonstration of ruthlessness had served
his turn.
The long siege and defence of Byzantium impressed the imagi-
nation of contemporaries. ‘For three whole years,’ says Dio, ‘it
had resisted the armaments of almost the whole world.’ It would
appear that the historian exaggerates in time as well as circum-
stance. The siege, which had begun in the autumn of 193, must
have ended well before the autumn of 1 96 if Dio is right in saying
that the news of its fall reached Severus while he was still in
Mesopotamia; for he had recrossed the Euphrates on his way to
the West in time to be in Thrace by 27 May, the birthday of his
younger son CJeta®.
He celebrated the occasion ceremonially with military games,
^ See H. In^olt, Syria, xra, 1932, pp. 282-6, : ’ ^
® Jordanes, Get. xv, 84 M} of. S.H.A. Max. dm 2. See G- A, Harrer, in
X, 1920, pp. 163-4,
12
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
as became a formal act in a dynastic pro^amme. This programme
was carried further when he reached Viminacium, the capital of
Upper Moesia. The previous year, when he was still in the East,
he had announced himself to have Ijeen adopted into the family of
Marcus Aurelius, so entering a line of deified emperors; and he
had made good an awkward gap in the series by causing his army to
proclaim the deification of his Antonine predecessor and ‘ brother,’
Commodus^, whose memory had been condemned by the Senate.
The dynastic legitimation and religious sanction which he had
thus associated with his rule were now formally communicated to
his elder son, Septimius Bassianus, known as Caracalla^; he was
proclaimed Caesar by the army in place of Albinus under the
name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Meanwhile Albinus had crossed the Channel with the bulk of
the British garrison — three legions and auxiliaries — and had
gained a victory over a Lupus^ who was apparently legate of
Lower Germany. This would bring a great accession to his
strength, for the Lower Rhine and Belgic Gaul seem still to have
been the chief recruiting-ground for the auxiliaries of the British
army. But Gaul was not unanimous in his support^, and Trhves
appears to have been held against him® as he passed south into the
valley of the Sadne. He established himself at Lyons, where the
garrison, the Thirteenth Urban Cohort, came over to his side,
though the governor of Lugdunensis refused to recognize him
and quitted the province®. On the other hand, he had the support
of the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, L. Novius Rufus'^,
who had a legion, VII Gemina, at his disposal. And in the West
generally, the prevailing opinion was ready enough to credit him
with the political virtues set forth in the coinage which he now
issued from a mint at Lyons.
But Severus knew that the real field of political action was the
^ For Severus as divtM. Fit f. in 195 cf. M.-S.iv, i, p. gg,no. 65; p. 185,
no. 686. For the deified ancestry in the same year, with Commodusas divus
and/rater, cf. C.I.L. nil, g2^7-
® For convenience this name is used throughout, though it was not
applied to him until after he became Emperor (p. 48). At this time he was
ei^t years old.
® Dio Lxxn, 6, 2. Presumably he is the Virius Lupus who appears
presently in northern Britain (p. 38).
* Cf. the escapade of Numerianus related by Dio txxvr, 5.
® This is probably what is referred to in Dessau 419.
® For his restoration by Severus cf Dessau 1152.
’ C.LZ. 11, 4125. He was later put to d^th by Severus (S.H.A. Sev.
13, 7). For opposition to Severus in %>ain cf Dessau 1140.
I, II] THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST ALBINUS 13
Senate House at Rome, where the party of Albinus was predomi-
nant and only awaited a favourable occasion to avow itself and
assume control He therefore decided, probably at Poetovio, to
leave his army and to hasten south to Rome. At the same time he
detached a force to hold the western passes of the Alps, so closing
to Albinus the direct routes from Gaul into Italy and keeping open
for himself communication between Rome and the main body of
his own army, which he sent forward into Gaul through Noricum
and Raetia. At Rome he obtained from the Senate a denunciation
of Albinus as a public enemy. A dedication by himself to the
deified Nerva as his ancestor^, and the issue of a coinage which was
not content to proclaim conventional virtues but advertised the gifts
and games with which he now gratified the populace, were further
moves in a political campaign which closed before the end of the
autumn with a ceremonial departure, preceded by public vows for
his safe return. Taking the available strength of the City garrison
with him, he set out to rejoin his army, which by now had advanced
into Gaul.
From Poetovio westwards the army seems to have followed a
route through Noricum and Raetia along which Severus, with
cynical calculation, had put the roads into good repair the previous
year; this crossed the Noric Alps to Salzburg, from which it ran
by Augsburg to Windisch. From Windisch the direct route to
Lyons ran by Avenches to the valley of the Upper Rhdne, but the
strategy of the Severan army seems to have been to envelop
Lyons by striking northwards into the Sequani country and
following the valley of the Doubs by Besan^on to the Sabne at
ChSIon, for the first indication of its presence in Gaul points
to Tournus, only some fifteen miles down stream from Chtlon
and about sixty miles north of Lyons.
At Tournus (Tinurtium) the Life of Severus places a first vic-
tory won against Albinus, and the fact that Severus assumed two
imperial salutations (the ninth and tenth), apparently in close suc-
cession, before he left for the East on his second Parthian expedi-
tion^, implies that an important success had preceded the concluding
battle at Lyons. It is in itself improbable that his army would be
allowed, without a struggle, to take command of the valley of the
Sadne, for this meant the almost complete envelopment of
Albinus, who was already shut out from Italy by the occupation of
the Alpine passes and now found himself cut off from his base in
^ De^u 418.
® Cf. J. Hasebroek, Unterstakmgen GescUchte des Kaisers Septimus
SeveruSf p. 98. . . , ;
14 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
northern Gaul and Britain. He was, in fact, virtually shut up in
Lyons, and it was in the immediate neighbourhood of the city,
presumably on the line of the road from Tournus, on the right
bank of the Sabne^, that the final battle took place on 1 9 February
197. It ended in the decisive defeat of Albinus, who put an end
to his life when he found that he was surrounded and escape
cutoff.
It was hardly to be expected that his army would be able to
withstand the solid strength of the Danube legions. Like the
Syrian legions in the army of Niger, the British garrison can only
have been the nucleus of a composite force, if Dio^ is right in saying
that in numbers the army of Albinus equalled that of Severus.
Large contingents must have been raised in Gaul. Since the civil
wars of 69 the localization of the several army groups had been so
intensified by local recruiting that each of them now carried with
it, in any political action which it might take, a large civilian
population, not only from the neighbourhood where it was
stationed but from the wider area whence it drew its recruits.
If such regional feeling encountered resistances within its own
range, these were not due to any attachment to the centre but were
merely symptoms of a smaller within a larger particularism®.
Neither Dio nor Herodian emphasizes the wars of 193—7 as a
violation of a common patriotism, and Herodian presents the
combatants rather as regional or racial groups than as members of
the same State^. Native of a Punic town in Africa, Severus would
be no less conscious than an Eastern like Herodian of the strength
and danger of regional feeling, and he must also have been
aware of the absence of any Roman patriotism powerful enough
to react against it effectively. Both in the East and in the West
he had seen individuals and communities favour the nearest
claimant to the throne from no motive but self-interest, or acquiesce
from mere supineness. If he treated them with much the same
severity as the active combatants, they had given him reason to
believe that the only means of holding the Empire together was
military constraint, and even, in the immediate circumstances, a
systematic terrorism.
Lyons was handed over to the soldiers, who sacked and burned
it, while the cohort on garrison there, XIII Urbana, was replaced
by detachments from the four legions on the Rhine®, The head of
^ C£ C. JuUian, Histeire de la Gaule, iv, p. 516, n. i.
^ Dio ixxvi, 6, I.
® Cf. Herodian m, 2, 7, and 3, 3.
* Cf. Herodian m, 2, 25 4, 35 7^ 2. ® Dessau 9493.
I, n] THE TRIUMPH OF SEVERUS 15
Albinus was sent to Rome, as Niger’s had been sent to Byzantium,
as a warning to those who persisted in their hostility. The warning
would be addressed particularly to the senators, upon whom it
seems to have produced an immediate effect, for an inscription
proves that they sent an embassy to Sevenis at this time^. The
embassy was sent to Germany, which shows that Severus himself
was in the north directing the measures being taken against those
who had favoured Albinus in Britain and in Gaul. It is to this
period that Herodian assigns the division of Britain into two pro-
vinces^. The fact that these were so delimited as to divide the
garrison between them (p. 36) indicates that the object aimed at
was the same as in the partition of Syria — the prevention of a
military challenge such as had come from Albinus and Niger.
Since the Rhine legions had long been divided between two pro-
vinces, there was now no formidable army in the West under a
single command.
Master of the West as well as of the East, Severus proceeded to
carry on a systematic persecution of his political enemies, which
was continued all over the empire for ten years with a relentless-
ness that provoked grave disorders. But the principal object of
his resentment was the Senate. He had taken a considerable risk
to secure its decree of investiture, and with that he believed he had
the right to expect that opposition anywhere would be discoun-
tenanced. Yet an actual majority of its members had continued to
favour Niger or Albinus, and by this hostility had negatived the
effect of the ofBcial decree upon the general opinion.
Early in June he rode into Rome® at the head of a large body of
troops. There was no surprise when he took the occasion of the
first meeting of the Senate to address to it an oration in which he
announced his own policy by commending the severity of Marius,
Sulla and Augustus. He put the policy into action by sentencing
to death twenty-nine of the senators who had supported Albinus.
The confiscated estates of these and all other political enemies, in
? the East as well as in the West, passed into a newly instituted
exchequer, the res privata^ which was at the personal disposal of
i the Emperor (pp. 27—8). He had need of abundant funds; besides
making another distribution to the populace of the capital, he gave
a donative to the army and increased the pay by one-third. To the
legionaries he granted also a formal recognition, hitherto denied
them, of unions contracted with local women while on active
r . 1 Dessau
® Herodiaii ni, 8, 2.
i,' ® C£ Dessau
i6 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
service, and he extended to the under-officers {principaks) as well
as the centurions the privilege of wearing the gold ring, which had
been the badge of the equestrian order. This did not now confer
upon them equestrian rank, but it was a mark of the Emperor’s
intention to make the army a recruiting-ground for the order, and
therefore for the imperial civil service. The scheme of government
which he had in mind was one which should be based upon the
army and should rise through the equestrian hierarchy to find its
point of unity and control in the emperor’s sacrosanct authority,
derived from a series of deified ancestors and transmitted by
dynastic descent. He compelled the Senate to decree the deification
of Commodus which the army had proclaimed in ipy, to con-
firm the title of Caesar and the Antonine name conferred upon
Caracalla by the army in 196, and to add the title of imperator
desiinatus^.
Before the end of the summer of 1 97 the Eastern campaign was
resumed. Vologases, seeking to recover the ground lost to the east
of the Euphrates and to placate the resentment of his vassals at the
Roman encroachment, had overrun Mesopotamia and laid siege
to Nisibis, and Severus had decided to complete the settlement of
the Eastern frontier. Part of his army, no doubt the main body,
would have been sent on from Gaul to follow the line of the Danube.
The force which he had led to Rome was transported by sea from
Brundisium. On the approach of the Roman army, Vologases
raised the siege of Nisibis and withdrew. Thereupon Severus
returned to the Euphrates, down which he proceeded south-
eastwards. The advance had now assumed the character of a
triumphal procession; Seleuceiaand Babylon were entered without
challenge, while the feeble resistance which Ctesiphon offered
merely gave an occasion for plunder to the troops and for a
massacre of the inhabitants.
This unresisted advance into the heart of Parthia, a region
which there was no intention of occupying permanently, was in
reality a demonstration, which reached its visible conclusion when
the Parthian capital lay in ruins. It was a demonstration intended
to impress not only the Oriental princes but also the population of
the Empire. By the title of Parthicus Maximus which he now
assumed Severus announced to the Roman world a military
triumph such as might be expected to obliterate the memory of
the civil wars, and he made use of this auspicious moment, with
his customary sense of the occasion, to accomplish the last act of
his dynastic programme. The army proclaimed Caracalla joint
1 Cf. Dessau 8914.
I, ii] THE SECOND PARTHIAN EXPEDITION 17
Augustus -with himself, and tranferred the title of Caesar to his
younger son Geta^.
It was now early in 198. In a region where supplies for an
army were hard to find, it was advisable to return by a different
route from that by which he had advanced; he led his troops
northwards for some distance up the Tigris, and then struck west-
wards into Mesopotamia. Here he encountered unexpected resis-
tance at Hatra, which he made two unsuccessful attempts to take,
the second in 199. In the course of that year, however, the cam-
paign as a whole was successfully concluded^ By impairing the
prestige of the Arsacids, as it turned out, he had prepared the
way for the more formidable power of the Persian Sassanids, who
were soon to displace them on the throne of Parthia. But at least
he now made good a claim which Dio attributes to him in 195;
he created a great bulwark to the Euphrates frontier of Syria.
Osrhoene, it is true, he was content to leave in the grateful hands
of Abgar IX as a client kingdom, but he enclosed it within a
province of Mesopotamia so delimited as to provide an outer line
of defence which left the Euphrates at Circesium to follow the
valley of the Chaboras to its junction with the Djaghdjagh at
Thannuris, whence it ran eastwards by Singara to the Tigris, the
upper course of which it then followed north-westwards. Resaina,
where the routes from the Euphrates crossings at Zeugma and
Nicephorium converged on the way to Nisibis, became a ‘colonia.’
Nisibis itself, a ‘colonia’ since 195, was the capital of the new
province. The procurator there was presently succeeded by an
equestrian prefect who was governor of the province, and equites
also were given command of the two recently enrolled legions,
I and III Parthicae, which formed the garrison.
Meanwhile Severus himself must have left Mesopotamia, after
the second siege of Hatra, about the middle of 199, for by the end
of the year he was in Egypt, after having spent some time in Syria,
Palestine and, perhaps, Arabia. On this journey he pursued his
policy of conciliating provincial opinion, but, now as always, policy
was combined with personal considerations. Tyre, which was
raised to a ‘colonia’ with the ius Italicum^ and the ‘colonia’ of
Heliopolis which was now given the same fiscal privilege if it had
not already received it in 195, were both cities which had declared
^ Parthicus Maximus seems to have appeared on the coinage about the
turn of 197—198, occurring first with Ihh/!, X. For Caracalla as Augustus
before 3 May 198 cf. Dessau 2485; for Geta as Caesar before 29 August,
cf. Dattari, op. at. 4081—2. , , - ;
® Cf. 1916, no. 46 (r jfan, 200); Dessau 2186. ; J
' , '
Sn " • ' it
i8 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
for him in the civil war. If in his treatment of Syria as a whole he
was able to forget that it had supported Niger, it was because, with
the removal of his rival, he became conscious of the claim it had
upon him as the native land of his wife Julia Domna. The remains
of imposing buildings, both sacred and secular, testify that it
entered now upon a new period of prosperity (p. 551). From Syria
he may have gone to Arabia by Palmyra, which probably received
its rank as a colonia iuris Italici in this reign. He visited Palestine,
and there also he gave the cities reason to be grateful. Sebaste
(Samaria) was made a ‘colonia,’ while in Judaea Eleutheropolis
and Diospolis (Lydda) date the beginning of their era as cities
from 199, and on the coinage which they now issue bear the
Emperor’s name as an honorary title. And this was a flourishing
period for the synagogues.
From Palestine Severus went by sea to Egypt. It would be in
obedience to his instructions, or in deference to his known wishes,
that Arrius Victor, the efistrategos of Lower Egypt, instructed the
strategoi of the nomes to see that the burden of maintaining the
Emperor’s suite and soldiers should not fall unfairly upon the
native population^. Severus recognized that the condition of the
villagers at this time was bad enough without the addition of a
fresh burden owing to exactions and violence on the part of
imperial officials, and he issued regulations to protect them against
such abuses in future^. On the other hand, the institution of a
council in the metropolis of each nome seems to have been intended
primarily to make a larger number of the richer class liable for the
performance of local and imperial liturgies®. It was now also that
Alexandria was given a council of the municipal type. Another
episode in the history of Alexandria that is associated with the
name of Severus is the departure of Clement, the head of the
Christian catechetical school there, as the result of action taken
against the Christians in Egypt, as elsewhere, in accordance with
an imperial constitution, or constitutions (201—2), which sought
to put a stop to Jewish and Christian propaganda by making con-
verts liable to severe penalties (p. 481). In 201 the Emperor
sailed from Egypt to Antioch^, where he gave the toga virilis to his
son Caracalla, now in his fourteenth year, and designated him
consul with himself for 202. When they entered upon office at
the beginning of the year, they were still at Antioch, which was
restored to its former dignity in commemoration of the event.
^ PM. 1 . 683. , * Preisigke, Sammelbttch, 4284.
® For this reason the institudon of did not contribute to local
harmony} cf. P. Oxy. xn, 1406. * I.G. xiv, 917.
I, ih] the return JOURNEY: PLAUTIANUS 19
Soon after, Severus set out upon the return journey to the West,
following in the reverse direction the route by which he had come
east to the victory at Issus. We know from Herodian that he
visited the legionary headquarters of Moesia and Pannonia. An
inscription recording that he and Caracalla reconstructed the
canabae oi legion VII Claudia at Viminacium^ suggests that
he was especially interested in the remodelling of the civil settle-
ments attached to the legionary camps which would now be
necessary as the result of his grant to the legionaries of legal
recognition of the unions they contracted with native women, and
the permission this carried with it to live with them and their
families®. The increased importance of such settlements is seen in
the fact that, in the reign of Severus, two of them, those at Car-
nuntum and Aquincum, both previously ‘municipia,’ received the
status of ‘coloniae.’ His movements in this region are reflected
also in an improvement of the road-system, especially in Pannonia,
Noricum and Raetia. One of the stretches of road now repaired,
that from Celeia to Aquileia, would be on the route by which he
entered Italy. Since he had reached Sirmium by 18 March®,
he had time to be in Rome by 13 April, the anniversary of
his proclamation at Carnuntum, and presumably the opening
day of the festival of his Decennalia, which he celebrated this
year (202).
III. THE PERSONALITY AND POLICY OF SEVERUS
His entrance into the city, like all the more public acts of his
reign, was well timed. His impressive achievement in the East,
soon to be commemorated by the arch which still looks down upon
the Forum^, enhanced the celebration of his Decennalia, while the
stability which nine years of success had given to his rule seemed
to be projected into the future by the marriage of his son Caracalla
to Plautilla, the daughter of his Praetorian Prefect, C. Fulvius
Plautianus, like himself an African. But if the seven days festival
of April 202 was the culminating point of the reign of Severus, it
also brought the career of Plautianus to a climax which challenged
the eminence of the Emperor. Plautianus had been Prefect, and
almost continuously sole Prefect, since 197 (or earlier). After
being honoured by Severus with the consular insignia, he was
1 Dessau 9105. ® Herodian in, 8, 5. For the effect of this
indulgence at York and Caerleon seep, 42.
® If the date and place of the rescript in Cod. Jmt. ii, 31 (32), I are
genuine. * Dedicated in 203 10, h. l).
z-z
20
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
given a seat in the Senate and obtained the consulship itself in 203,
with the Emperor’s brother, P. Septimius Geta, as his colleague.
He now exercised a power unequalled even by that held under
Tiberius by Aeiius Sejanus. The fact that his enmity drove
Severus’ masterful wife, Julia Domna, to take cover in the company
of philosophers is a measure of the influence he had asserted over
Severus himself by an overpowering force of personality. And if
relations between the two men became strained, and not for the
first time, yet the Emperor does not appear to have been able to
treat his Prefect with decision, and an occasion which presented
itself in 203 for his personal intervention in Africa may have been
welcomed as offering an escape from an ascendancy which he was
unable to confront.
Ever since the time of Marcus Aurelius the desert tribes had
been seriously troubling the African provinces and had even
carried their raids into Spain. To ensure a stricter policing of the
frontier, Severus had been developing in Tripoli the system,
begun by Commodus, of establishing outposts beyond the limes
on oases commanding the caravan routes from the interior. On
the Numidian frontier also outposts were being established, pro-
bably as a preliminary to extending effective control to the line of
the Oued Djedi (Nigris), while in eastern Mauretania (Caesari-
ensis) a new limes was formed by a line of forts along the rim of the
high plateaux dominating the province on the south^. In Tripoli
the extension of the frontier system seems to have involved opera-
tions against the desert tribes^.
The military base for Tripoli as well as Numidia was the head-
quarters of the legion III Augusta at Lambaesis. A number of
inscriptions which indicate the presence of Severus there in 203®
testify to his concern to improve the amenities of military life
and to his interest in the erection or reconstruction of buildings
by which camp and canabae were being adapted to the changed
conditions*. Already the settlement had received a municipal
constitution; under Severus or Caracalla it becomes a ‘colonia,’
like the settlements at Aquincum and Carnuntum on the Danube.
And it was in the reign of Severus that the military area of
1 E. Fabridus in P.W. s.v. Limes, cols. 665-9; see also the articles of
J. Carcopino in Revue archeologique^ v"“ ser. xx, 1024, pp. 216 f??., and
yi. 1925, pp. losqq.
® Aurelius Victor, Cues, xx, 19.
® For this and other evidence for a journey to Africa in 203-204
Hasebroek, op. cit. pp. 132—5.
* See above, p. 19.
SEVERUS IN AFRICA: BRIGANDAGE
21
1
i
I
V
I
I, III]
Numidia was separated from proconsular Africa and made an
independent province, of which the legate of the Third legion was
henceforth governor. Civil life also benefited by the Emperor’s
personal interest in the African provinces^. Many communities
became cities of municipal or colonial status, while others which
were already received the privilege of the lus Italicum.
Among these was the Emperor’s birthplace, Leptis Magna, which
he also adorned with new buildings. And cultural life was, no
doubt, stimulated by the presence of the distinguished intellectuals
whom he assembled from every land^.
By the end of May 204 he had returned to Rome to be present
at a celebration of the Secular Games*. To inaugurate the new era
thus announced Caracalla and Geta were nominated consuls for
205. The first notable event of the year was the work of the elder
brother. Jealous of the power of Plautianus and impatient of his
control, he produced evidence, probably concocted, of a plot
against the Emperor and himself. Summoned to the palace on
22 January^, Plautianus indignantly denied the accusation, and
Severus was not unwilling to believe him; but Caracalla inter-
vened, and the Prefect was killed by an attendant. His daughter
Plautilla was banished to Lipari, where she was put to death on
her husband’s accession six years later.
Even after the removal of Plautianus, Severus did not assume
such a r 61 e in the life of the capital as to recover the attention of
the historians. In the narrative of Dio the most prominent figure
between the years 205 and 208 is a certain Bulla Felix, the leader
of a gang of six hundred bandits who waylaid travellers on the
roads of Italy for two years (206—207). Bulla himself was no
ordinary brigand, but his trade at this time was all too common.
During the civil wars the mobilization and dispersal of large
armies had flooded the empire with deserters and refugees, while
the subsequent persecution by Severus of his political enemies had
driven many or its ruined victims to desperation. Tertullian’s
reference to the tracking down of brigands throughout all the
provinces® seems to have been suggested by the circumstances of
^ It would appear that trade with the interior was not only encouraged fay
the policing of the caravan routes beyond the limes but greatly extended by
the use of the camel (S. Gsell, Mhn. Ac, Inscr, Lxm, 1933, p. 149), a matter
in which Syrian troops stationed by Severus on tfap Numidian frontier may
have had a hand (J. Carcopino, Syria, vi, 1925, p. 148, n. 5).
® Philostratus, Fit, Soph, ir, 20, 2.
® Dessau 5050 a; Not. degli Scmn, 1931, p. 313.
* Chrm. Pasck, ed. Bind., i, p. 496} a. Dio txxvii, 3, 3. : , j y * ;
® Tertullian, 2, 8. < . y;
22 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [ghap.
the time. In the East the imperial poliee-gangs (/coXX.-jjrtcai'e?) so
harried poor and rich alike, innocent as well as guilty^, that they
soon found themselves confronted bybrigands of their own making.
In Egypt their activity aggravated evils caused by an oppressive
system of liturgies and requisitions, which was driving the in-
habitants of the villages to abandon their homes and take to
brigandage; nor had the measures taken by Severus when in
Egypt (p. 1 8) provided an effective remedy, for successive Pre-
fects continued to issue edicts directed against brigandage and
against exactions which provoked it^. In Baetica and Mauretania
the procurators had been given special powers to facilitate con-
fiscation^. It is not surprising that from regions as far asunder as
Africa, Asia, and the Rhineland there is evidence of disorder still
more serious than brigandage^.
The interior condition of the empire must have given Severus
more concern at this time than the safety of the frontiers. The
East had been made secure against the Parthians. On the Rhine
and Danube there was no immediate prospect of trouble, and we
learn of no activity on either frontier more serious than an adjust-
ment of the eastern boundary of Dacia by which the Trajanic
limes along the Aluta to the Red Tower pass was replaced by a
more easterly line, reinforced by a wall, which left the Danube
below the junction of the Aluta and ran to the Transylvanian Alps
at Brasso®. In Britain, it is true, the defensive system had collapsed
after the withdrawal of the garrison by Clodius Albinus, but order
was now being restored there by Alfenus Senecio (p. 38), and
it was not till 208 that the Emperor himself set out for the island
to crown the work of his legate by a punitive campaign.
Meanwhile he spent most of his time in Campania, for the life
of the capital was demoralizing for his sons and probably dis-
tasteful to himself. He busied himself, we are told, with juris-
diction and affairs of State. The chief member of his council was
^ For Asia cf. the Lydian inscriptions, Keil and Premerstein, Driite Reise,
in Denhchriftm der Wien. Ahad. lvii, 1914— 15, nos. 9, 28, 55.
® For the activity of the Kolletimes in Egypt and an edict of the Prefect,
Subatianus Aquila, see P. Oxy. vni, 1 1 00. This dates from 206. Cf. P. Oxy.
xn, 1408 for an edict against brigandage issued by the Prefect, Baebius
Juncinus, in 210—14.
® Dessau 1406; C.l.L^. vin, 9360.
Cf. Dessau 429 (from Sicca Veneria in Africa) and 430 (from Ephesus).
The African inscription dates from 208, From tb. 1 153 we learn that about
the ^me time detachments of ail the four legions on the Rhine had to be
mobilized to suppress disorder.
® Fabricius, op. cit. col. 645.
I, in] THE FRONTIERS: LEGISLATION 23
Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus), one of the two Praetorian Prefects
whom he had appointed in place of Plautianus. Other members of
the council were Paul and Ulpian. The association of the Emperor
with these great jurists enriched the law with numerous constitu-
tions^ which made many of its rules more equitable and reinforced
the humanitarian tendency which had shown itself under the
Antonines and which was to influence the growth of the law
throughout the whole period of the Severan dynasty; for although
Papinian, on the death of Severus, was dismissed by Caracalla,
who soon afterwards had the satisfaction of seeing him killed by
the Guard, Paul and Ulpian survived into the reign of Severus
Alexander to give continuity to the imperial legislation.
The humanitarian tendency of the jurists, as we shall see, was
so directed by the Emperor as to serve a political policy. There
was a political motive also when he chose to indulge his native
taste for cruelty. If the execution of certain prominent sena-
tors like Quintillus and Apronianus showed him to be ready,
during these last years in Italy, to give audience to dubious in-
formers and to listen to stories of dreams and magical practices
as evidence of treasonable ambition, this was not malice looking
for pretexts but a credulous apprehension of opposition to his
rule. And more than any of his predecessors Severus regarded his
own authority as the guarantee of political unity. For, with a
fateful harmony, his own nature and experience had conspired
with the necessities of the time to suggest to him a structure of the
State in which the keystone was the religio-dynastic power of
himself and his family.
The picture of Severus which has been transmitted by the his-
torians is made up of qualities which they have occasion to remark
upon in their narrative of his wars, but they are the qualities dis-
cernible also in his civil policy. Like the conduct of his wars, this
bears the impress of a single personality, which found in its
associates, even in the least tractable among them, congenial in-
fluences and appropriate agents. It is noted by Dio that, until the
decisive encounter at Lyons, Severus had not been present at any
of the battles of the civil wars. But he was always the motive and
directive force. The rapidity and range of the movements of his
troops reflected his own decision of character and his power to
plan with foresight and upon a large scale. When he took com-
mand himself, as at Lyons and in his foreign wars, his presence
was the more felt because he expressed a dynamic personality with a
^ See A. de Ceuleneer, Bssai sur la me et le rl^e de Septime Sivlre,
pp. 271-290. ' ' " ^ ^ ,■
24 the army and the imperial house [chap.
conscious sense of effect. There was calcuktion even in his vices —
his cupidity, his unscrupulousness and his vindictive cruelty.
Cruelty as well as perfidy was commonly attributed to the race
from which he was sprung, and there were some who called him
a ‘Punic Sulla.’ The African town of Leptis Magna, where he was
born in 146, was a Phoenician foundation which still put up
Punic inscriptions in the Imperial period; and he himself spoke
Latin with a Punic accent. His consciousness of his origin and
his race is proclaimed in his coinage and is evident in his policy.
To such a man the Roman tradition was alien. He was possessed
of great intellectual energy and curiosity, and he had acquired, in
his prowncial fashion, a considerable degree of Latin culture, but
he did not comprehend Roman institutions in their rooted com-
plexity, as these were understood by men who were themselves
part of the same growth. He judged the Roman world of his day
by his native instincts and his personal experience, and with a
realism unembarrassed by historical sympathies or scruples he
developed certain tendencies which he found there into a simplified
and logical scheme of government.
The privileged position of Italy as the historic nucleus of the
Roman State he disregarded as an anomaly. He assimilated the
troops there to the frontier garrisons by establishing a legion,
II Parthica, on the west bank of the Alban lake at Albano, by
recruiting the Praetorian Guard from legionaries, drawn mostly
from the Danube, the East and Africa, and by reinforcing the
equites singulares, a personal bodyguard of the emperor instituted
by Domitian or Trajan and composed of men chosen from the
auxiliary cavalry regiments. With the exception of the Urban
Cohorts and the City Watch, the army in Italy no longer repre-
sented Italy in arms, but composed an external coercive force at
the disposal of the emperor.
In carrying out this levelling policy, however, he did not pro-
ceed merely by depressing the status of Italy but also by elevating
that of the provinces. He particularly favoured Syria, the home of
Julia Domna, and his own native Africa; but for the provinces
generally he displayed a solicitude which awakened in the local
communities a revival of activity expressed and commemorated by
the erection of monumental buildings, commonly dedicated in his
honour. It was not that he simply continued the Antonine practice
of requiring from the officials of the central government a high
standard of administration : certain of his measures were designed
to place the provinces on the same level as Italy. The rule that
Punic or Celtic, or indeed any native language, could be used in
I, m] ITALY AND THE PROVINCES 25
legal documents is known to us from a jurist of this period^. To
provincials Severus granted a larger measure of the relief from
the burden of maintaining the imperial post which the Italian
towns had enjoyed since the time of Nerva. In allowing, or con-
firming, to the collegia tenuiorum in the provinces® permission to
associate without special authorization he was extending to them
a privilege which those of Italy had possessed at least since the
time of Hadrian. If he revived in Italy the alimentary institutions,
which had been neglected or suspended under Commodus, he
gave to those in the provinces, which had hitherto been of a purely
private character, an official recognition and protection by placing
them under the charge of the provincial governors®. But his policy
showed itself especially in grants to many local communities of
citizen status, which placed them politically on the same level as
the Italian towns, while to some of them, notably in Syria and
Africa, he gave the lus Italicum, which assimilated their territory
fiscally to the soil of Italy^.
The same policy is seen at work at the centre of government.
For his own major officials the Emperor looked by preference to
Syria and other Eastern provinces and to Africa; it was usually
natives of these and the Illyrian provinces who were now selected
for the equestrian commissions, and it was mostly soldiers from
the same provinces who were promoted to the higher grades of the
legionary centurionate, which now qualified, like the equestrian
commissions, for entrance into the imperial civil service. The
composition of the Senate was similarly affected. The sons of
primipili received senatorial commissions as trihuni laiiclavif^y and
the provincial element in the Senate was so increased, mostly by
the introduction of Orientals and Africans, that the Italian members
were reduced to a decided minority®. But the effect of this change
was social and cultural more than political, for the Senate had
already been brought effectively under imperial control in the
1 Ulpian, Dig. xxxii, 1 1. An official recognition of Celtic is seen also in
the use of the Imga as a measure of distance not only on the roads rep^red
in Gaul, where it had already been displacing the Roman mile passus (A.
Grenier, Jrckhlogk gallo-^omaine, n, pp. 97-101), but also in the Rhine
area (K. Schumacher, Siedelmgs- tmd Ktdturgeschkhte der Rheinlande, ii,
pp. 228, 230). ® Dig. XLVII, 22 , I. ® U. XXXV, 2, 89.
* This policy diowed itself also in the position now aligned to provincial
mints. See H. Mattingly, ‘The Coinage of Septimius Severus and hisTime
Num. Ckr. 5th ser, xii, 1932, f^. 178, 185-^; M.-S. iv, i, pp. 58-9.
® A. V, Domaszewski, Die Rangerdmeng dee romschen Heeres, p. 172, ,
® To about one-third. See P. I^mbrechts, La Composition dd] Rinat
remain de Septime Sevkre d DieclMien,pf. ^Cdsqq. ;
26 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
exercise of such functions as it still retained, and it was now to
be eliminated as far as was possible from the scheme of govern-
ment.
Even a senator so solicitous of the dignity of the order as
Cassius Dio has only an historian’s reason to offer for the con-
tinuance of the senatorial magistracies — a regard for tradition
and constitutional continuity^. So far as administration was con-
cerned, it had long been recognized, even by those who belonged
more fully than either Dio or Severus to the central tradition, that
with the growth of an imperial civil service the survival of sena-
torial privilege involved a complicated and clumsy dualism, and the
unification of administration through the displacement of senators
by equestrian officials was a process that had been going on since
the time of Augustus. This process was continued by Severus
systematically.
He broke with the established practice of confining legionary
commands to senators by placing the three newly enrolled ‘Par-
thian’ legions under the command of equestrian prefects. We have
seen that one of these legions, II Parthica, was stationed in Italy
at Albano, and with the Praetorian Cohorts, the associated equites
singular es^ the City Watch and the Urban Cohorts, there was now
an army of over 30,000 men in Italy commanded entirely by
equestrian officers of the Emperor with the exception of the
Urban Cohorts, which, as the police of the capital, remained under
the charge of the City Prefect, who was a senator. The two re-
maining ‘Parthian’ legions were stationed in Mesopotamia, and
this reconstituted province, like its legions, was entrusted to an
equestrian prefect instead of the usual senatorial legate, on the
model of the system which Augustus had applied to Egypt and its
legionary garrison as ‘one of the secrets of despotism.’ And the
practice was now begun of sending a procurator as acting governor
{vice or agens vices praesidis') to Imperial provinces which had
hitherto been governed by a senatorial legate^, a far-reaching ex-
tension of the existing practice by which the senior procurator of
a province, senatorial or Imperial, was occasionally appointed to
^ Dio Lir, 20, 2, where he speaks in the person of Maecenas.
2 C.LL. m, 1625; cf. 7901; cf. Cod. Just, ix, 47, 2 (Caracalla). The
procurators in charge of the Maritime, Cottian and Poenine . 41 ps, and of
Sardinia and the two Mauretanias, which had ail been procuratorial provinces
in the first two centuries, are now commonly given the title ofpraeses, which
comes into official use in this period as a general term for a provincial governor,
especially the governor of an imperial province, whether of senatorial or
equestrian rank (Dig. i, 18, i).
I. Ill] SENATE AND E^UITES: FINANCE 27
act temporarily as governor -when the proconsul or legate was
absent or died during his term of office.
A complete elimination of senators, however, from provincial
commands which had long been reserved to them was not at once
possible, and elsewhere Severus contented himself with reducing
the importance of such functions and the freedom of their exercise.
He resumed the policy of breaking up provinces into smaller
units: we have seen that Syria and Britain, the provinces from
which Niger and Albinus had made their challenge, were each
divided into two commands, and that the military area of Numidia
was separated from proconsular Africa and erected into an inde-
pendent province governed by the legate of the legion which
garrisoned it (III Augusta). And in all provinces alike the freedom
of the senatorial governors was restricted by the activity of imperial
procurators^.
The increased activity of the imperial procurators in the pro-
vinces was especially due to an enlargement of the imperial sources
of revenue and a re-organization of the financial administration.
To meet the difficulties bequeathed to him by Commodus and to
cover his own lavish expenditure Severus had tried the usual ex-
pedient of debasing the currency, the silver content of the denarius
being reduced to about 50 per cent. That this fresh debasement,
when exploited by speculation, was liable to provoke local crises is
proved by a decree of the Senate of Mylasa (in Caria)^, which
shows that there it drove the undepreciated local currency out of
circulation and caused a sharp rise in prices ; and Mylasa cannot
have been alone in this experience. But a rise in prices does not
seem to have become general®, and Severus did not find it necessary
to have recourse to large or frequent emissions of coinage, partly
because improved material conditions increased taxable capacity,
partly because of the wealth that passed into his hands from a new
source. This was the confiscated property of those who had sup-
ported Niger and Albinus. For its administration a new treasury
was instituted, the res frivata principis. The pairimomum had long
tended to become confused with the focus, and now it gradually
ceased to have a separate administration. The new treasury enabled
^ Thus, in Britain the procurator now appears alongside the governor in
inscriptions recording the restoration of military buildings. Cf. C.I.L. vii,
1003 (from Risingham) and jirch. A el. 4th ser. xvi, 1939 (from Chesters)
for the association of the procurator, Odatinius Adventus, with the consular
legate, Alfenus Senecio. ® O.G.l.S. 515*
® F. Heichelheim, in Klio, xxvt, 1932-3, pp. 102-4, ztidiBememe
History (suppl. to Econ. Joum^, in, iio, Fehi 1935, Pp. 7 » 10. • : ; . ,
28
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
Severus to restore the jiscus to solvency by relieving it of certain
burdens, notably the increased pay now given to the soldiers, but
administratively it was sharply distinguished from the Jiscus by
being treated, as its name indicates, as the private property of the
emperor. The procurator in charge of it took rank alongside the
rationalis of the fiscus, and such was its importance that its institu-
tion was a decided step, in one department, towards identifying
the State with the person of the ruler. And finance was a depart-
ment which impinged everywhere on other fields of administra-
tion. Drawing its revenues from estates in all parts of the empire,
the res privala gave employment to an army of procurators whose
functions, with those of the fiscal procurators, encroached from
all sides upon the sphere of the senatorial governors.
A more direct encroachment by the imperial civil service is seen
in the enlarged powers given to the Praetorian Prefects, a matter
in which the ambition of Plautianus may have done much to draw
out the policy of the Emperor. The control now exercised by the
Praetorian Prefecture over the Prefecture of the Annona for the
better provisioning of the army was a re-adjustment within the
civil service itself. It was by the extended jurisdiction assigned to it
that the Praetorian Prefecture encroached on the functions of the
senatorial magistrates. The ordinary jury-courts {quaesHones fer-
petuae), which had continued to meet under the praetors or other
senatorial presidents since the Republican period, now ceased to
be held. Since the jurisdiction of the Senate itself was in practice
confined to cases remitted to it by the emperor (mostly cases
concerning its own members), the higher jurisdiction passed
almost entirely to the imperial tribunal. To deal with the in-
creased jurisdiction the circuit within which the City Prefect tried
cases as the emperor’s representative was limited to Rome and
one hundred miles around, and the rest of Italy was subjected to
the jurisdiction of the Praetorian Prefects. Hitherto they had
exercised a summary jurisdiction in cases arising out of their
duties of police. Now they had delegated to them, in civil as
well as criminal cases, a general jurisdiction which not only
covered Italy, outside the sphere of the City Prefect, but also
included the hearing, vice imperatoris, of appeals from the pro-
vinces. After the death of Plautianus, Severus returned to the
practice of appointing two Praetorian Prefects. The fact that
one of these was the jurist Papinian indicates the new scope of
the office. By this change juristic science was made more directly
than before an instrument of imperial control and justice was
assimilated to castrensis iurisdictio.
I, hi] militarization of government 29
Papinian succeeded Plautianus as vice-president of the em-
peror’s council (the consilium princips). The senatus consultum was
now rarely employed as an instrument of legislation, and the
jurists of the council therefore sought to give to the imperial con-
stitutions something more than the validity as interpretations of
the law which had always been accorded to them by a clause of the
law of investiture. Ulpian was a native of Tyre, and Papinian also
was perhaps an Eastern, but in asserting that the decisions of
the emperor had ‘the force of law’ {kgis vigorem) they contrived to
find justification for the doctrine within the limits of the Roman
constitution by discovering legislative power to be inherent in his
imperium^. By its influence upon the imperial constitutions,
which were framed in accordance with its advice, the council not
only guided the growth of private law but did much to shape
public policy and direct administrative action.®
The emperor and his council, in fact, now resembled a general
and his staff, with the equestrian civil servants as their executive
officers. This simplification of government on a military model was
accompanied by a militarization of the civil service itself. It was
recruited not only from men of equestrian family or of the upper
class in the municipal towns, as under the Flavian and Antonine
emperors, but also from professional soldiers who had risen, mostly
from the ranks, to one of the higher grades of the legionary cen-
turionate. Both elements were now mainly of provincial origin,
chiefly Illyrian, African or Oriental, but the administrative service,
working by established rules, was not easily deromanized, and
those who passed into it through the centurionate — and this was
the element which tended to predominate — had been formed
through long years in a traditional discipline. Raised above the
humble class in which they were born by some capacity for civil
administration, such men fitted into, and indeed consolidated,
the hierarchic structure of Roman official life, and if, in their
uncultured hands, the administration lost finesse and flexibility,
the military qualities and summary methods which it now acquired
were not unsuited to the conditions of the third century.
The absorption of legionary centurions of the higher grades
into the equestrian service, military or civil, and their increased
^ Ulpian, Dig. i, 4, i. Gains (i, 5) had pointed the way to this
doctrine.
® For the adlectio inter conutes Juggg. nnn. of an eques, C. lulius Pacatiantts,
procurator of the Gottian Alps (Dessau 135^, a resron can be given
(Hirschfeld, XJntersuchmgen, p. 271, n. 2} Hasebro^ op. cit. p- 95), bat it
still iUustrates Severus’ readiness to i&e^ard senatorial privilege. 1 ' • •
30 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
employment in extraordinary commands, created a new demand
for these officers, which was met by freer promotion from the ranks
of the legions themselves. This was not the least of the favours by
which Severus improved the conditions of military life. The story is
told by Dio that on his death-bed he advised his sons to enrich the
soldiers and disregard all others. But this expresses the mind of
Caracalla better than the larger policy of Severus, which identified
the army with the more virile elements throughout the empire and
aimed at a stricter regimentation of the population as a whole. It
was a population too large and various to be capable of the patriotic
devotion necessary to support a burdensome political system by
voluntary energy, and the citizenship, so far from awakening such
energy by its progressive extension, had lost its virtue by expansion
and had ceased to animate in provincial life a directing element
attached to the centre. It is significant that the discrimination
which the Roman law had always observed as between privileged
and unprivileged persons was ceasing to be a distinction between
citizens and non-citizens, and was being reformulated, under the
terms honestiores and humiliores^ as a distinction between the upper
official class and the mass of the population. Besides senators and
equestrian civil servants, the included the decurions
and magistrates of the cities, whose obligations, local and im-
perial, were now exacted with a methodical rigour^ which was
directed especially against the more wealthy among them. Cita-
tions in the Digest from the jurists of this period relating to the
municipal dekaprotot (decemprimt)\ and the more frequent men-
tion of them in Eastern inscriptions dating from the early third
century onwards®, indicate that the change was now taking place
by which, from being the occasional recipients of burdensome
honours, they became personally responsible, as representing the
council, for the regular financial obligations of their community.
In the West as well as the East municipal administration had
long been an increasing burden for a restricted number because of
the exemptions granted by successive emperors to certain classes ;
but whether exempted by imperial constitution or simply by their
lowly social condition, the humiliores, with the exception of the
proletariate of the great cities, who had little or nothing expected
of them but goodwill, had had public duties and obligations of their
^ L, 2-4, which is drawn mainly from the writings of jurists of this
period.
® Ik t, 4, 3, 10 (Ulpian); t, 4, 18, 26 and l, 12, 10 (Herennius Modes;-
tinus).
® Cf. I.G.R.R. iir, 60-1, 63, 64-5, 67, 6g, etc.
I III] REGIMENTATION 31
own to fulfil; and it is to the Severan jurists that the Digest refers
for their systematic formulation^. A stricter control was exercised
by government officials over the guilds of merchants and shippers
who did service for the annona (mercatores frumentarii, olearii\
naviculariif'^ while the guilds which undertook to provide a. fire-
brigade in their city (Jabri, centonarii^ dendrofhort) were reminded
that their exemption was confined to working members, and did
not apply to wealthy adkcti seeking an escape from municipal
burdens®. If exemption from such burdens was now extended by
Severus to soldiers who had served their time^ and to the coloni on
imperial domains, the veterans had military obligations imposed
upon them (p. 32), while the relief granted to the coloni was to
ensure that the imperial treasury should receive its full share of
the fruits of their labour®. And the peasantry in general, besides
providing labour, had to support requisitions in kind and, in the
imperial provinces, especially in the frontier areas, had to supply
the recruits for the army, and in particular for the garrisons of
their own neighbourhood.
It was indeed upon a militarized peasantry that this structure of
the State was based. The documents which attest the emperor’s
concern to protect the rural population from the oppression of
officials only serve to show the variety of obligations for which it
was made liable; and if he encouraged it, by grants of political
status, to form itself into communities, that was because the com-
munal organization provided a means of exacting these obliga-
tions®, just as the collegial organization was now being employed
to ensure the services due to be rendered by the trading and in-
dustrial population. Many of the peasant communities, indeed,
were assimilated to military garrisons; such were the Thracian
foundations which, like Forum Pizi, served as stations for the cursus
1 Dig. L, esp. 5 and 6, mainly drawn from the writings of Ulpian, Papin-
ian, Paul, Modestinus and Callistratus.
® lb. L, 6, 6, 3-9. Dessau 6987, which shows friction between the navi-
cularii of Arles and the officials of the annona, dates from 201.
® Jnn, Spig. 1920, nos. 69-70, set up in 205, The rescript of Severus and
Caracalla cited in this inscription relates to the centonarii of Solva in Noricum,
but it states the rule as applicable to all collegia of the kind. Cf. Callistratus
ap. Dig. L, 6, 6, 12.
4 Dig. L, 5, 7.
® Ih. L, 6, 6, II. Under Marcus Aurelius the rule for such coloni had been
mmeribus fungi but sine damno fisci (jb. l, l, 38, l).
* That these communal obligations indud^ the garrisoning of forts in
the neighbourhood is implied by the constitution of Forum Piaa in Thratxj
see M. Rostovtseff, J.R.S. vrn, 191 Sj p. 26.
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
publicus or for the annona^, and the fortified castella in which the
peasantry were being grouped in the frontier area of Numidia®.
And in resuming the earlier practice of founding settlements of
veterans^, or of settling veterans in existing cities, he gave to these
new or reinforced communities, along with the colonial name,
much of the military character and function which the name had
originally implied, either as elements in the frontier system or as
supports to the central authority, now represented by himself and
his dynasty.
To soldiers on active service, on the other hand, Severus gave
something of a civil capacity by permitting under-officers to form
collegia.^ by regularizing the unions formed by the men with local
women, by permitting them to live with their families in settle-
ments attached to the camps (pp. 19, 42), by stabilizing such
settlements and giving to some of them colonial status, and by
extending the practice of assigning land to frontier units to be
given out to the men in allotments^. By this assimilation to one
another of the rural population and the troops, frontier defence
was passing into the hands of a peasant militia, and the difference
between the military and civil elements of the State was defining
itself territorially as a division, and in some measure an hostility,
between the rural areas near the frontiers and the urbanized
regions of the interior.
Severus is censured by Herodian for destroying military disci-
pline by pampering the soldiers. It is true that, in spite of his
personal hold over them, fie occasionally had trouble with his
troops, but there is nothing to prove that the army lost in efficiency
during his reign. Modern historians, judging the Severan system
by the military anarchy which followed upon the end of the dynasty,
have been inclined rather to blame it for confirming the localiza-
tion of the frontier armies and so facilitating usurpations. But no
one had better reason than Severus to balance the political danger
^ For Forum Pizi see Ditt.® 880; LG.R.R. 1, 766. See also D. van
Berchem, Afemoires de la Societe des Jntiquaires de France, txxx, 1937,
pp. 182-4.
® J. Carcopino, Syria, vi, 1925, pp. 145-7.
® RostovtzeflF, Soc. and Econ. Hi'rf. pp. 378, 609-10. For Mesopotamia
see F. Cumont, Syria, v, 1924, pp. 351-2. For the settlement of veterans in
Kokav'im in Egjrpt, without urbanization, see J. Lesquier, Varmee romaine
d'l^gypte, pp. 330-2.
* For a l^onary as conductor prati at Carnuntum, the land being allotted
to}ma\>y zprindpilaris, c£. Dessau 9103. This dates from 205. The system
had been applied in Egypt since the first century (Wilcfcen, Grundzuge,
P- 397 )-
THE ARMY
I, m]
33
of military particularism against the exigencies of frontier defence.
That he judged it expedient in the circumstances of the time to
follow a dual policy appears from a comparison of his treatment of
the army in Italy with his treatment of the frontier garrisons.
The forces in Italy, as now represented by the reconstituted
Guards and by the legion stationed at Albano, he had changed
from an Italian army to a denationalized army, with no attach-
ments except to his own person, and organized in counter-
balancing units commanded by his equestrian officers. The in-
crease in the number of the Guards and the addition of the legion
not only reinforced the military support of the imperial authority
at the centre of the Empire but raised to a formidable strength the
force now available to accompany the emperor when he took the
field; and the extensive repairs which Severus and Caracalla
carried out on the imperial road-system improved communication
between Italy and the northern frontier as well as between the
frontier garrisons’-. But though provision was thus made for
military concentrations in emergencies, Severus confirmed the
existing system by which, in normal circumstances, localized
provincial armies, now limited, with one exception (p. 48), to two
legions, were responsible for the guard of their own sector of the
frontier.
In increasing the employment of the small, highly nationalized
units described as numeric and in adding especially to the number
of those levied in the East, Severus did not change the practice of
sending them to serve on frontiers distant from their place of re-
cruitment. For the formation of such units, largely by forced
enlistment, and the maintenance of their native composition and
character were a means of removing from certain unromanized
areas disorderly or quarrelsome elements, or of employing at
suitable points troops with special aptitudes, such as the Syrian
numeri to which he entrusted the guard of the Saharan frontier of
Numidia^. And there was an obvious military reason why some of
the regular auxiliary units also, such as the various corps of Syrian
archers, should continue, in spite of their wide distribution, to
draw their recruits from the area where they were originally
’ As indicated by the distribution of their milestones in Gaul and Upper
Germany, the Alpine region, the Danube area, Cappadocia, Syria and
Africa. Besides the numerous milestones of Severus and Caracalla, there is
the Antonine Itinerary, which takes its name from Caracalla, to testify to the
concern shown at this time for the road-system of the Empire; and the Tabula
Peutingeriana also may date from this period. ' , ,>
® J. Carcopino, Syria, vi, 1925, p- itS. , . > y . ? ; ^
C.A,H, XII 3
34 the army and the imperial house [chap.
raised. But for all other units, legionary as well as auxiliary, he
developed the existing practice of recruiting for local service. The
recent increase of the soldiers’ pay may have been found necessary,
especially since a general rise in prices seems to have occurred in
the reign of Commodus^, to attract recruits in sufficient number
to maintain the system of voluntary enlistment, and for the same
reason it may have become more necessary than ever to offer local
service as an inducement. But in associating the frontier garrisons
more closely than before with the land in their neighbourhood and
its native population, Severus may not have been thinking merely
of the effect upon recruiting. When Severus Alexander continued
the policy of transforming the frontier troops into a peasant militia,
one of his reasons, according to his biographer, was that the men
would fight the better for having land of their own to defend.
Septimius Severus seems to have believed that such local attach-
ments would also stabilize the frontier garrisons, and make them
less ready than a purely professional army to be marched off upon
distant political adventures. If the military anarchy that followed
the death of Severus Alexander belied this anticipation, it must be
remembered that the system by then had maintained internal
peace almost unbroken for nearly forty years, and that, with the
end of the dynasty, it lost its principle of unity. For, more than
any of his predecessors, Severus made the imperial house, as a
domus divina, the centre of the religion and discipline of the army
and indeed of the whole militarized structure which the State had
now become.
As an African who had forced his way to the throne of the
Caesars by a military pronunciamento and two civil wars, after
well over a hundred years of a regular succession, Severus was
conscious of the need for a legitimation more potent with public
opinion than the reluctant recognition he had extorted from the
Senate. It was for that reason that he had professed himself to
have been adopted into the Antonine family as son of Marcus
Aurelius. It was in the tradition of his race that even a fictitious
genealogy, such as he and Caracalla are given in inscriptions, could
make a man a true member of a kin, and if there was no precedent
in Roman practice for a posthumous adoption, that would be no
great difficulty when it was the emperor and pontifex maximus
himself who was the subject of it. The support which the Antonine
name gave to his dynasty throughout its history is a proof that, in
^ F . Heichelheim in Klio, xxvi, 1932-3, p. 1 025 Economic History (Suppl.
to Econ. Jottm.), m, 10, Feb. *935,: pp. 7-8, 10. See below, p. 202.
THE DOMUS DIFINJ
I, in]
35
popular opinion at all events, the adoption produced all the effect
of a valid act. It made Severus the heir and continuer of a line of
deified emperors. This character he assumed with the conviction
of a man who regarded himself as predestined to rule. If he did
not commission a work which Cassius Dio wrote on the dreams
and portents which foretold to him his future greatness, he must
have supplied the material for it. He had accepted an assurance
that he had a royal horoscope, and he had married Julia Domna as
his second wife because she was similarly favoured.
This conjunction of the stars brought together a native of a
Phoenician colony and a Syrian who was the daughter of the
hereditary prince-priest of the baal of Emesa; and with their
accession a Semitic dynasty came to occupy the throne for over
forty years. It was as if the spirit of ancient Assyria had taken
possession of the palace to make the Empire subj ect to a bureaucracy
which should be the executive of a divine authority transmitted
through a dynastic succession. In such a system there would be
no place for a Senate or for the principle of delegation by the
State, and it was a sign that this notion of government now tended
to prevail that the title dominus came to be generally applied to
the emperor. For this term, when given its full value, implied an
authority which was undelegated, and which, therefore, as the
contemporary Tertullian insisted, presented itself as divine^.
Because of this implication, Tertullian notes, the title had been
rejected by Augustus when he founded the authority of the Roman
ruler on the magisterial imferium delegated by the State. In prac-
tice, however, he and his successors had permitted or contrived
that it should appear as a power emanating from a domus dominorum
to those of their subjects who were accustomed to such a form of
government, and it was this notion that tended to become pre-
dominant with the Severan dynasty. But the original character of
the imperial authority was not easily eliminated. The jurist Ulpian,
whose political opinions were formed as a member of Severus'
council, in the very act of asserting the authority of the ruler to
be absolute, describes it as conveyed to him by delegation from
the State; and this principle implied that the Senate, as the
only regular organ of delegation, should survive as an essential
element of the constitution, however reduced its administrative
^ JpoL 34. For the divinization of Severus and Julia as Sol and Luna on
the coinage cf. M.-S. iv, i, p. 75 and p. 162, no. 522; pp. 218, 220 iq*, nos.
36, 52, 59, etc Ih. pp, 208-9, nos. 858-9, for the assimilation of Julia as "
mater Augg. to Cybele as mater deum. For the djmastic propaganda bn the
coinage cf. J. Vogt, Die Alexandrmschm Mibezen, i, pp, ; I
36 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
r 61 e might be. If Severus himself made his army the mouthpiece
of his dynastic scheme in the early part of his reign, he took the
precaution of having the military proclamations formally confirmed
by the Senate; and even the army spoke, in theory, for the State.
And it was anxiety about the general assent to the dynastic suc-
cession on which he had set his heart that made him seek to cover
up the mutual animosity of Caracalla and Geta with protestations
of ‘Concordia’ on the coinage, and finally decide to remove them,
with their mother, from the temptations and gossip of the capital
to the discipline of the camp. He looked to Britain for a military
success which he might use for political purposes, as he had used
his Parthian triumph ten years before. By the prominent place
given to his sons and especially to Caracalla, the coin-issues com-
memorating the British campaigns agree with Dio^ and Herodian^
in suggesting that in his personal intervention there the ageing
emperor was thinking more of his dynastic project than of condi-
tions in Britain, where his legate, Alfenus Senecio, seems to have
had the situation well in hand before he himself crossed to the
island in 208. w
IV. SEVERUS AND BRITAIN
The withdrawal of the British garrison by Albinus in 196,
besides precipitating a civil war, had left the province at the
mercy of its enemies, who did not fail to take advantage of the
opportunity. The activity of Severus and his legates in Britain was
therefore directed to two ends— the lessening of the danger of
another challenge from a British governor, and the restoration of
the defensive system.
Herodian’s statement that Britain was divided into two pro-
vinces is confirmed by Dio and a number of inscriptions®, where
the provinces appear as Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior
and as so delimited that the legion II Augusta, which had
its headquarters at Caerleon in South Wales, and XX Valeria
Victrix at Chester were in Upper Britain, while the York legion,
VI Victrix, was in the Lower province^. As in the later arrange-
ment represented by th.& Notitia Dignitatum, York would be the
^ Dio Lxxvii, II, I (cf. 14, i).
® Herodian in, 14, 2 (cf. iii, 5, 1).
® Dio LV, 23; C.l.L. m, 69951 '’“j 280 (cf 281); viii, 1578, 2080,
2766, 5180; Jnn. Jpig. 1922, no. 116 (cf J.R.S. xi, 1921, p. 102). In the
Antonine Itinerary the heading of the British section, ‘Iter Brittaniarum’,
may be due to a later recension.
^ Dio LV, 23; C.l.L. vm, 2080, 5180.
I, IV] THE DIVISION OF BRITAIN 37
base for the system of the Wall and the supporting forts behind it^^
except that those in south Lancashire, as far north perhaps as the
Ribble, would no doubt be controlled from Ghester. As Lincoln
was included with York in Lower Britain^ the boundary between
the two provinces seems to have run north-westwards from a point
south of Lincoln to a point north of Chester. This division would
imply that Lower Britain would normally be a praetorian province
governed from York by the legate of the Sixth legion, who would
henceforth rank as a provincial legatus pro praetore. Such seems to
have been the position of the Claudius Paulinus who appears in an
inscription from High Rochester as legatus pro praetore in 22o\
whose headquarters are given elsewhere as ad legionem $extam\
and who was apparently of praetorian rank^.
But if the immediate sphere of the consular legate was now
defined as Upper Britain, with its two legions, he would exercise
some measure of control over the praetorian province^, where
detachments of his legions were always liable to be employed, and
he would presumably take command there when circumstances
required a large legionary concentration in the north. Such cir-
cumstances prevailed more or less continuously throughout the
reign of Severus, and this would account for the fact that the two
legates of Severus whom our evidence proves to have been active
in the north, Virius Lupus and Alfenus Senecio, were both con-
sulars and must therefore be presumed to have been legates of the
upper province, if Herodian is right in attributing the division of
Britain to the year 197 and if the arrangement indicated by Dio
and our epigraphic evidence was the original one^.
^ CJ,L, V11I5 2766 (Dessau 2762), mentions a prefect who commanded
Coh. II Asturum in Lower Britain, This cohort was in garrison at Aesica
on the Wall in the Severan period (CJ,L, vir, 732, dating from 225). The
evidence of inscriptions proves unity of command in the early third century
over the whole system of the Wall and its outposts from east to west, and over
supporting forts behind it. See E. B, Birley, Arch, AeL 4th ser. xi, 1934,
P- ^ 3 '^*
^ Ann, epig, 1922, no. 116 (cf. J,R,S, xi, 1921, p. 102).
^ y,R,S, XXV1I5 1937, p. 247, no. 7. ^ ‘CAL, zin, 3162,
® For his career see also Eph, Epig. ix, 1012.
^ Cf. C.LL, VII, 280, for the presence at Greta Bridge, which must have
been in Lower Britain, of a heneficiarius cmsularh provinciae mpertoru,
^ The passage (lv, 23-4) in which Dio describes the distribution of the
legions in his day was written, or’ revised,' after the death of Sevems, as is
shown, for example, fey its placing the Brigetio' legion, I Adiutrix, in’ Lower
Pannonia, an arrangement which, did not come into effect until the teign of
Caracalla; and none of the epigrapKc-emdehce. for the division of 'Britain
38 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
Virius Lupus appears in Dio as dealing with the tribes beyond
the northern frontier and he is mentioned in two inscriptions from
Yorkshire^, one of which dates from 1 97 or the early part of 198.
The situation which confronted him was a serious one. The whole
military system in the north, from the Wall and its outposts to the
legionary bases of York and Chester, had been laid in ruins. The
Yorkshire inscriptions tell of repairs done at Ilkley and at Bowes,
and it would be under Lupus that the headquarters at York were
restored. But it would appear that the depleted units of his pro-
vince had not yet been brought up to normal strength, for Dio^
tells us that he was reduced to purchasing peace from the Maeatae,
a name by which the tribes of southern Scotland were collectively
known at this time.
After 204, the year in which Severus returned to Rome from
Africa, there is more evidence to show that active measures were
being taken to deal with the situation. An inscription of 205 tells
of successful operations in Brigantian territory®, and Dio, writing
of the year 206, alludes to victories in Britain^. This activity is
reflected in the coinage of 206—7, which it is especially con-
nected with Caracalla, who seems to have been in Britain at this
time®. But the restoration of the defensive system appears to
have been mainly the work of Alfenus Senecio, who is mentioned
as consular legate in a dedication to Victory® and is known from
other inscriptions, one of which dates from 2 o^~y'^, to have
rebuilt forts over a wide area in the north.
Two of these come from the Wall forts of Birdoswald and
Chesters®. Housesteads, also on the Wall, has yielded fragments
of an inscription which mentions the name of Severus®, while on
can be dated earlier than that relating to Claudius Paulinus, whose governor-
ship falls within the reign of Elagabalus. There is thus room for the possibility
that, when Britain was first divided, an arrangement different from that
indicated by Dio and the epigraphic sources may have been in force until
the events now to be described had run their course and the situation in North
Britain had defined itself.
1 C.I.L. VII, 210, 273. 2 Dio Lxxv, 5, 4 (p. 346 Boissevain).
® C.I.L. vii, 200. ^ Dio Lxxvii, 10, 6.
® M.-S. IV, i, p. 225 sq., nos. 84, 85 a (both of 206); p. 227, nos. 96, 98
(both of 207). It would seem to have been now that Caracalla assumed the
stylelmp.IL Cf. C./.Z. x, 5909 (of 207).
« C.I.L. VII, 513 (Eph. Epig. ni, p. 132). ’ Dessau 2618.
' ® Trans, of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiq. and Jrch. Society,
N.S. XXX, 1930, p. 199 (cf. y.R.S. XIX, 1929, p. 214, no. 3); Jrch. Jel.
4th set. XVI, 1939. The dedication to Victory referred to above comes from
the Wall fort of Benwell.
® Jrch. Jel. 4th ser. ix, 1932^ pp. 233-4.
THE DEFENCES OF BRITAIN
I, 17]
39
a rock near Brampton legionaries have recorded that they were
quarrying stone therein 207^. Together, these inscriptions indicate
that Severus was responsible for the restoration of the Wall and
its stations which excavation has shown to have followed upon a
wholesale destruction. Dio complains of Severus that he associated
with his own name buildings which he had merely repaired®, and
the vanity of the Emperor and his dynasty in this regard, or the
desire to flatter it, may well have left some trace in the historical
tradition. At all events, Aurelius Victor and Eutropius found it
stated in the source which they employed that Severus was the
actual builder of a wall in Britain, and from Victor it passed into
the biography of the Emperor in the Hisloria Augusta^ to recur in
later allusions to Britain in ancient writers and to misdirect in
modern times, from Camden onwards, the interpretation of the
Roman remains between Tyne and Solway. It is known now that
the building done there in his reign was a work of restoration. In
this Senecio included the outpost of Risingham in Redesdale®.
Bewcastle also, some six miles north of Birdoswald, and High
Rochester, on the southern margin of the Cheviots, were recon-
structed about this time. In southern Scotland an outpost to the
western end of the Wall was provided by a restoration of the fort
at Birrens^, in Dumfriesshire, though this may not have taken
place until after Senecio’s departure.
The restoration of the defensive system was not confined to the
northern area. The walls of Chester were now rebuilt, and Wales
was partially re-occupied after having been virtually evacuated for
more than half a century. There was much reconstruction at
Caerleon. On the north-west coast the fort at Carnarvon was
restored, and repairs were done to the road from Carnarvon to
Chester. At Caersws, in Montgomeryshire, and perhaps at
Brecon, both key positions on the lines of communication from
the coast to the interior, there is some evidence of habitation in
the Severan period, too meagre to indicate a re-garrisoning of the
forts, but enough to suggest that they may have served as stations
for road patrols. There is no reason to believe that the Welsh
tribes had been giving trouble, and the distribution and character
of the evidence points rather to a measure of vigilance which
anticipated possible raids from the Irish, who may indeed have
taken a hand in the recent disorder.
But it was in the north, beyond the Maeatae, that Severus be-
^ C.l.L, vn, 912. ® Dio rxxvii, 16, 3. ■
® Dessau 2618, •-
* Proc, Sac, Jntiq, of Scotland^ ixaii, 1937-8. > " "
40 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
lieved the ultimate source of trouble to He, and he decided to
make Caledonia his objective when he crossed to Britain in 208 to
take command in person. Herodian tells us of bridge-making and
other preparations for the campaign^. That these involved some
preliminary operations in the field can be inferred from the coinage
of this year. There Caracalla still plays the leading role, but in the
issues of 209 Severus himself comes into the foreground‘d with the
actual advance into the north. He is said by Dio to have approached
the extremity of the island, which may well mean that he reached
the Moray Firth, but though Dio and Herodian both magnify the
difficulties of the campaign, they have nothing definite to say of
the movements of his army. No trace of them is discernible until
the estuary of the Forth is reached®; there the coin-finds from
Cramond tell unmistakably of activity in the early third century*.
It has therefore been suggested that Severus moved his troops to
the Firth of Forth by sea. Confirmatory evidence comes from the
mouth of the Tyne at South Shields, where it has been found that
the fort which protected the harbour was developed in the reign
of Severus into an important store-base^ Denarii of Severus of
this year figuring Neptune and Triton may refer to the transport
of an army by sea®. We are on surer ground when we turn to the
evidence of Severan coins found in Scotland. Outside Cramond,
these consist of a few hoards from Fife, Kinross and Kincardine-
shire’. They seem to indicate an advance into the Aberdeen low-
lands from the Firth of Forth. Indeed, they suggest that Severus
may not have followed the route that ran north from Camelon,
but may have crossed the Forth from Cramond into Fife and
Kinross, and joined the Agricolan route about the Tay, or at some
point between there and Camelon, by crossing the Ochils or
rounding their western flank. Whichever route we suppose him
to have followed to the Tay, the view that he transported his
troops by sea to a base on the Forth suits the narrative of Dio, who
1 Cf. the ‘Bridge’ type on the coinage of 208 (M.-.S. iv, i, p. 120, no.
225, p. 198, no. 786) and 209 (ib. p. 284, no. 441, where for tr. p. xi
should be read tr. p. xii). ® M.-S. iv, i, p. 121, no, 231, p. 198, no. 788,
® Birrens as an outpost to the Tyne-Solway Wall does not come into the
reckoning in this connection. The same is true of Risingham and High
Roch^er. From High Rochester the main land-route northwards ran by
Chew Green, Cappuck and Newstead. The negative evidence of excava-
tion on these sites, especially at Newstead, must be regarded as significant.
* G. MaMonald, Proc. Sec. jtntiq. of Scotland, ur, 19 1 7-8, pp. 213—6.
® I. A. Richmond, alrch. Ael. 4th ser. xi, 1934, pp. 98—9.
® M.-S. IV, i, p. 120, nos. 228-9; see Volume of Plates v, 230, c.
’ Macdonald, op. at. pp. 264-^76.
CAMPAIGNING IN SCOTLAND
L IV]
41
gives Caledonia as his immediate objective, and refers operations
against the Maeatae to a subsequent campaign.
When the operations of 209 were over, Severus raised Geta to
the rank of Augustus^ and all three August! assumed the title of
‘Britannicus^,’ as if they regarded the Caledonian campaign as
decisive. It resulted, Dio tells us, in the Britons being compelled
to cede a considerable part of their territory®. This suggests that
from a base at Cramond troops may have been stationed along
the line of the Wall from Forth to Clyde, which had been evacuated
a generation beforeh If none of the excavated forts on the Wall
has yielded coins or other objects of Severan date, this negative
evidence is hardly conclusive against an occupation which cannot
have lasted much more than a year (p. 42) j and it is possible that
the second, and more perfunctory, of the two restorations which
have been noted in these forts, and which has been explained
as a mere episode in their abandonment early in the reign of
Commodus®, may in reality represent a brief re-occupation in
209—2 II. If there was some re-occupation of the Forth-Clyde
line at this time, the territory which would thus be cut off would
be that of the Maeatae, and we know from Dio® that for some
reason they suddenly awoke from the quiescence into which they
had been bribed by Virius Lupus. In 210 Severus sent a force
into their territory upon a campaign of merciless repression.
Caracalla must have been in command to judge by his prominence
in the coinage which commemorated it.
In 2 1 1 the Emperor apparently looked forward to an immediate
return to Rome'^. But the trouble in Britain was not yet over. The
Caledonians had decided to come to the aid of their kinsmen, and
the Emperor made up his mind that he must once more take the
field himself. While he was busy with preparations, he died at
Y ork on 4 F ebruary . Caracalla at once made peace with the enemy.
If Severus’ design was to conquer the whole island, as Dio says, it
had come to nothing. It did not even result in an occupation of
1 LG. Ill, ed. min. 1077. The occurrence of the title on the coinage of
Geta with his first trib. pot. {=209) is infrequent.
^ Not on the coinage till 210, but Severus is given the title in an inscription
of 209 (Dessau 431). ® Dio lxxvii, 13, 4.
* The latest coins from the Wall are of Marcus Aurelius and Lucilla with
the exception of two doubtful attributions to Commodus (G. Macdonald,
The Roman Wall in Scotland, ed. 2, pp. 463—4).
® Macdonald, op. cit. p. 479. « Dio nxxvn, 15, 1-2,
’ M.-S. IV, i, p. 1 22, nos. 246, 247A (“Fortuna Redux^). The ‘Adventys
Augusti’ t3rpe on a denarius of 2i(>-i 133, no. 33 ®') appeal also to
have anticipated a return to Rome. .1 > ?
42 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
any part of enemy country, for Dio tells us that any troops that
had been posted there were withdrawn^. On the other hand, the
long freedom which the province was now to enjoy from barbarian
inroads must be attributed in a large measure to the effect pro-
duced by the northern campaigns of the last years of Severus.
Some credit must be allowed also to the vigilance that was
exercised under his immediate successors^. And this was a time
when a new development was taking place in Britain, as else-
where, at the legionary fortresses. Excavation at York has indi-
cated that the troops there were ceasing to be quartered in the
barracks, and similar evidence has come from Caerleon®, The
disuse of the barracks would mean an access of importance for
the adjoining settlements, and it will have been in the Severan
period that the settlement at York received the status of a
‘colonia^.’
V. CARACALLA
In the coinage of 2 1 1 Caracalla and Geta are still connected
with military events in Britain, and it would seem to have been
late in the year before they left the island for Rome, where they
deposited the ashes of their father in the mausoleum of the Anto-
nines and celebrated his deification. Caracalla’s passion to be sole
ruler, which had made him await his father’s death with im-
patience, now made intolerable to him the nominal equality which
1 Dio Lxxvm, 1,1. The history of Birrens would seem to run parallel
with that of the stations on the Tyne-Solway Wall, to which it served as an
outpost. As part of the Wall system it would not be regarded as in enemy
country, and a continued occupation there would not be a contradiction of
Dio’s statement, which is borne out by what is known of the other Roman
sites of Scotland.
^ Brides evidence fora rebuilding of the amphitheatre at Caerleon under
Caracalla or Elagabalus (see below, n. 3), there is the evidence of inscriptions
for road repairs under Caracalla in Wales and in the neighbourhood of the
Wall (C.I.L. VII, 1 164, 1186) and of the restoration of fort buildings in the
north under both Caracalla (ib. 351, ioo2, 1042) and Elagabalus (zA 838,
964, 1044-5 = 7 -R.S. XXVII, 1937, p. 247, no. 7).
® For York see J.R.S. xviii, 1928, pp. 95-8; for Caerleon, Jrck. Camb.
June 1931, p. 155 - At Caerleon the evidence for the disuse of the barracks
c. 200 is the more significant by contrast with the evidence of an inscription
from the site of the headquarters building recording restoration under Severus
(V . E. Nash-Williams, Catalogue of the Roman Stones found at Caerleon,
p. 5 > no. 2 = C.I.L, VII, 106), and with the evidence for a rebuilding of the
amphi&eatre under Caracalla or Elagabalus (R. E. M. Wheeler, ‘The Roman
Amphitheatre at Caerleon’, Archaeologia, nxxvni, 1928, p. 154).
* It was a ‘colonia’ before 237 (y.R.S. xi, 1921, p. 102).
I, v]
CARACALLA AND GETA
43
Geta enjoyed by his recent elevation to the rank of Augustus ; nor
did the brothers require the added motive of jealousy for hating
one another. Such was their mutual dread and animosity that they
themselves proposed, according to Herodian, that they should be
separated by the waters of the Propontis, with Europe and North
Africa to be ruled by Caracalla, the Asiatic provinces and Egypt
by Geta^. But this was not to the mind of their mother, who felt
their proposed partition of the Empire like a threat of personal
mutilation to herself, and who seems to have believed that she
could maintain between them some semblance of the ‘Concordia’
which the coinage still proclaimed. Her sons were under no
illusion as to each other’s intentions, and they took their precautions
accordingly. At the end of February^ 212, however, Geta was
persuaded to meet his brother in their mother’s apartment in the
palace, where Caracalla, by pretending a desire for reconciliation,
had induced Julia to call them together. Centurions whom he had
instructed entered the apartment, and when Geta ran to his mother
for protection he was murdered in her arms. If any of the frontier
armies were inclined to show hostility to Caracalla, they soon
thought better of it^. In Italy the Alban legion threatened trouble
for a moment, but it was quieted by a promise of increased pay.
It would be influenced also by the decided attitude of the Prae-
torians, who were persuaded by a liberal donative to recognize
Caracalla as sole emperor. The Senate could do nothing but
accept Caracalla’s story of a plot formed against his life by Geta.
To celebrate his escape from this alleged plot he issued an edict of
amnesty in favour of all who, for whatever reason, had been con-
demned to exile*, but Geta’s associates, and many who were merely
suspected of looking upon his murder with disfavour, were treated
as his accomplices and put to death. Among them was the jurist
Papinian. The agents of the imperial secret service, the speculatores
and frumentarii, spread everywhere a sense of insecurity by an
assiduous espionage®. Geta’s name was ordered to be erased from
all monuments®, and the surviving inscriptions of the period testify
by their mutilation to the rigour with which the order was
executed.
^ Herodian iv, 3, 5-9 ® Dio xxxvin, 2, 5 with S.H.A. Geta 3, i.
® In inscriptions of 212-3 there are protestations of loyalty from several
frontiers, including the British frontier, for which see E. B. Birley, Jrch,
Jel. 4th ser., xi, 1934, pp. 127-31.
* Dio txxviH, 3, 3; Mitteis, CArwt 3785 Dig. l, 2, 3, i; Caei. ^ust. x^
61, X. ® Dio xxxviii, 17, 1-2.
® See Volume of Plates v, 230, .
i i
44 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
Julia accepted the situation, and endeavoured to control and
direct the behaviour of her elder son. We are told that he had been
tractable as a boy, but he was not now easily advised. Though he
was only twenty-five years of age when his father died, he had
already been Augustus for thirteen years, and this premature
possession of power had nourished a despotic temper which a
natural shrewdness and a sharp tongue made the more formidable.
After the murder of Geta his degeneration was rapid. Along with
cruelty and duplicity he had inherited, in an exaggerated form, the
religiosity of his family, and the consciousness of his unnatural act
afflicted him with superstitious terrors, which drove him to have
recourse to dubious sophists, whose prescriptions encouraged
an addiction to magical practices. Ill health contributed to
the nervous apprehension in which he lived. His mind became
unbalanced. His habitual mood of sullen and suspicious morose-
ness would sharpen into a craving for bloodshed which the slaughter
of the arena could not appease and which would drive him into a
homicidal fury in which revengefulness appears to have been con-
fusedly combined with religious and moral motives. From a
megalomania in which he saw himself as another Achilles or
Alexander the Great he would fall into a childish preoccupation
with trifles which held up the course of ordinary business.
It was fortunate that his interest in government was fitful, and
that he was inclined to leave practical matters to his mother or to
his counciF. The council continued to direct government ac-
cording to the principles in which its members had been trained
under SeptimiusSeverus. Western Hispania Citerior, including the
headquarters of the legion VII Gemina at Leon, appears to have
been made a separate province^. It was probably also before the
end of Caracalia’s reign that a consular was appointed, virtually as
governor, ad corrigendum statum Italia^^ and if the office was still a
temporary one for which occasion had been given by the preva-
lence of brigandage, it anticipated the regular institution of the
correctura^ and therefore marked an important stage in the assimi-
lation of Italy to a province. In continuing the levelling policy of
Severus the council would meet with no opposition from Caracaila,
who himself reproduced the paternal type as in a distorted mould^.
The father’s dislike of the Senate showed in the son as an open
contempt. He affected the blunt speech as well as the dress and
^ Caracalk’s dependence upon those about him may explain the emer-
gence about this time of the fireedman remembrancer of the palace as an
equestrian maguter with an officiitm. Cf. P-W. s.v. Scrinium, col. 897 sq.
* Dessau 1157; M. Marchettti Dhs,. epig. s.v. Hispania, p. 807x7.
® Dessau 1159, ‘ Eutropius vin, 20.
I, V] CARACALLA AS SOLE RULER 45
habits of a plain soldier, and to the militarist policy which he
inherited he gave a more brutal form. ‘No one ought to have
money but myself,’ he is reported to have said, ‘and I must have
it to give to the soldiers.’ Actually, he raised the pay of the
legionaries from 500 to 750 denarii, with corresponding increases
for the other branches of the service (see below, p. 262).
This increase of fifty per cent, in the pay of the soldiers, along
with the frequent donatives with which Caracalla indulged them,
soon turned the surplus which Severus had left in the treasury into
a deficit. He followed his father’s example of depreciating the
coinage. The weight of the aureus was reduced, and alongside the
denarius a new silver coin was put in circulation, the ‘Antoni-
nianus,’ which appears to have been rated as a double denarius,
though it weighed little more than a denarius and a half, and con-
tained no higher a proportion of pure metal than the older coin
now did (p. 262). Demands upon the rich and upon the cities for
aurum coronarium ^Lnd. other extraordinary contributions became
more frequent, and he increased the regular taxation, raising from
five to ten per cent, the duties on manumissions and inheritances,
and suppressing in the case of the latter the exception in favour of
near relatives^.
Since its imposition by Augustus the duty on inheritances had
been payable only by those who possessed the Roman citizenship.
According to Dio^, it was in order to increase the revenue from this
duty that the citizenship was extended by the ‘ Constitutio Anto-
niniana’ of 212. Dio writes as if this conferred the citizenship
upon the whole of the free population then inhabiting the Empire,
but a mutilated text of a Greek translation of the edict mentions a
class of dediticii as being in some way excluded®. The retention of
the Latin term in a Greek version current in Egypt implies that
it had a recognized technical meaning, defining a political cate-
gory not primarily Eastern. That there was such a category or
status is shown by the fact that the Lex Aelia Sentia of a.d. 4
(Vol. X, p. 433) placed certain freedmen ‘dediticiorum numero.’
A mark of this status was incapacity to rise to the citizenship, and
this disability, and the desire to maintain it, would account for
^ That these measures were not ineffective is shown by Dio’s admission
(lxxx, 12, 2®) that at his dath he left a large sum in the treasury.
® Lxxvm, 9, 4-5.
® P. Giessen 40. Before the words p^»p[i? 3 Tajv[ 8 e]S 6 mA: 6 <oj' ini. 9 of the
papyrus there is a lacuna too long (19-22 letters) for any restoration to daim
more than a slight degree of probability. , For the most recent attempt at a
restoration of the tesa see A. Wilhelm, Jowm. of Arch, xxxvm, 1934,
p. iy()sq. For the literature oii lMs TSfbole matter see the bibliography to
this chapter, B ; L * * '
46 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
the express exclusion of deditkii from the benefit of the edict.
We know of no class of this status at the time of the issue of the
edict except the freedmen of the Lex Aelia Sentia, but the re-
tention of the status or category meant that new classes could
be assigned to it subsequently; and, in fact, we encounter at a
later date a non-citizen class of deditkii other than the freedmen
referred to\ as well as a non-citizen class which continued to arise
as the result of defective manumission (the Junian Latins; see
Vol. X, p. 431; XI, p. 829).
But those immediately excepted from the benefit of the edict as
deditkii (whether or not they included others than the freedmen of
the Lex Aelia Sentia) were apparently few, and Ulpian^, like Dio,
can describe the edict as applying generally to the (free) popula-
tion of the Empire. Caracalla announces in the preamble that he
is showing his gratitude to the gods of the State for their protec-
tion (in the alleged conspiracy of Geta) by bringing them new
worshippers on a scale worthy of the divine majesty®. The notion
of the cives Romani as a body which perpetuated the worship of
the tutelary gods of the State had been weakened by the vogue
of more personal cults. In the re-assertion by Caracalla of a
mutual bond between deity and the recognized members of the
community we may suspect the influence of the Semitic idea,
especially as the official religion, as the coinage shows, was now
being given the Syrian, or Semitic, form of solar worship.
But Caracalla is presenting as a thanksgiving to the gods a measure
which recommended itself on other grounds. Naturally no finan-
cial motive is mentioned, especially as money was a matter which
he was secretive about; he professed, Dio tells us, to be doing an
honour to the subject population of the Empire. The grant of the
citizenship would indeed be little more than an honour. Though
it opened the way into government service for an increased number
of provincials, especially Easterns, it can have had little other
practical effect. In criminal law the privileges that had once dis-
tinguished the citizen from the non-citizen were now confined to
one class of citizens — the honestiores^ and even they could no
longer claim as a right to be referred from the courts of provincial
governors to the tribunal of the emperor^. Neither in criminal
^ As early as a.d. 2325 cf. Dessau 9184. ® Dig. i, 5, 17.
, ® C£ Wacken, Chrest.(^, which dates from 2 1 5, for the introduction of
the cult of Juppiter Capitolinas into Egypt at ArsinoS. For its probable
connection wiffi the edict see Wilcfccn, Grundz. p. 1 16.
, * That is, as judge of first instance.. This resulted from a delegation of ka
gladii by the emperor to all, provincial governors, the limits of a governor’s
competence now depending upon the terms of delegation.
I, v] THE ‘CONSTITUTIO ANTONINIANA’ 47
nor in private law was there any abrupt movement towards a
unitary system^, a tolerant accommodation between the Roman
rules and non-Roman institutions in their local varieties continuing
to be the practice of the provincial governors, as directed by
juristic opinion embodied in Imperial instructions.
It is true that by approximating the Empire formally to the
politico-philosophical ideal of a universal community of equal men
the edict impressed the imagination of later ages, but even in the
political sphere it merely marked the end of a process. In practice
it made so small a change that it was not much noticed by con-
temporaries, and officially it was made so little of that it has left
hardly any trace upon the coinage. No doubt the very slight-
ness of its effect testifies to the magnitude of the development
of which it marked and symbolized the completion. But the
policy of enfranchisement, once the controlled instrument of a
liberal statesmanship, had come by now to express merely an
inevitable recognition of the increasing preponderance of the
provinces over a dwindling Italy, The citizenship had long been
ceasing to serve as the repository of a national (Italic) sentiment,
and the levelling of its boundaries came easily under an Oriental
dynasty to which Roman institutions, seen from the outside,
presented themselves as facile elements for the play of grandiose
conceptions.
Although the name of Caracalla is thus associated especially
with a memorable act in the civil history of Rome, his personal
ambition was directed rather to the achievement of military glory.
He was obsessed by the memory of Alexander the Great, of whom
he believed himself to be a reincarnation^; he assumed the title of
‘ Magnus,’ and dreamed of Eastern conquests which should show
his affinity with the great Macedonian. But an immediate sum-
mons to military action came from nearer home. Between the
Upper Danube and the Upper Rhine the debris of tribes which
had once dwelt about the Elbe had recently formed into a con-
federacy, known as the Alemanni, which now began to threaten the
Roman frontier. Caracalla crossed the Raetian limes in August of
2 1 3®, and by the following month he had concluded a successful
^ See E. Sch 5 nbauer, Z. d, Sav.-Stift, Rom. Abt. rm, 1937. p. 309.
The slightness of the immediate effaa: of the Constitution in unifying the
law is against the view that its real authors were the jurists. Both in idea and
in the actual terms of its preamble as ^ven in P. Gie^n 40, it is charac-
teristic of Caracalla, To the jurists, bn the other hand, it may well have
been a disconcerting enactment, said they may have set themselv« to
minimize its effects. ® See Volume of Plates v, 168, b.
® De^u 451.
48 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
campaign by a victory on the Main^, which he commemorated by
assuming the title of ‘Germanicus Maximus®.’ Besides building
or restoring forts and repairing roads and bridges, he constructed
(or completed) the stone wall (the ‘Teufelsmauer’) which re-
placed Hadrian’s palisade on the Raetian limes, and the mound
and ditch (the ‘Pfahlgraben’) which supplemented the palisade
along the Upper German sector.
It was probably now that he took a liking to the caracalla, the
garment from which he got the name that he is known by®. This
was a Celtic (or German) tunic, which he lengthened and wore as
a close-fitting skirted coat. He insisted with such effect upon its
use among the populace of the capital that from this time onwards
it plays a continuous part in the history of Roman costume. It was
also in this campaign apparently that he acquired, probably at
Baden Baden, his faith in the potency of Apollo Grannus, the
Celtic god of healing, whom it was his practice to invoke in the
ill health which afflicted him.
Ill health, so far from keeping him inactive, provoked him to
restlessness, and in the spring of 214 he was again on the move.
He seems to have spent some time on the Danube, and it was
probably now that he carried to its completion his father’s policy
of limiting the larger military commands to two legions (p. 33)
by so re-adjusting the boundary between Upper and Lower
Pannonia as to bring Brigetio, the headquarters of the legion I
Adiutrix, into the lower province, which was henceforth governed
by a consular legate, whose two legions balanced the reduced
command of the consular legate of the upper province^. There
was the more reason for this precaution that the Danube was
merely a stage on a march to the East. Vologases V, who had
succeeded his father in 208/9, threatened by his brother
Artabanus, and the situation appeared to Caracalla to offer an
opportunity for effective intervention. When he passed into
Thrace and found himself near the borders of Macedonia, at
once, we are told, ‘he was Alexander,’ carrying the impersonation
so far as to enrol a corps of Macedonians, whom he armed like
^ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxi, 2. ^ Dessau 451 (October, 213).
® The familiar form of the name, Caracalla, is that used by Eutropius
and Aurelius Victor. In Dio and S.H.A. the form is Caracallus. The name
does not ckpuf in Herodian nor do^ it appear on coins or in inscriptions,
i,* Trap Arm "Iff Tpfp arparoveSa (Herodian iv, 8, 1). For
I Adiutrix in Lower Pannonia in 228 cf. Dessau 2375. For a consular
le^te of the province before the end of the reign of Caracalla cf, ib. 1159.
On the other hand, Dessau 2382shows T Adiutrix still in Upper Pannonia in
212 or 213.
I, v] THE WARS OF CARACALLA 49
Alexander’s spearmen. The winter he spent in Nicomedia,
training his Macedonians in the formation of the phalanx and
carousing in a fashion that accorded better with the tradition
of his hero than with the state of his own health. Julia Domna,
watching the behaviour of her son from under cover of her
coterie of philosophers, emerged to take charge of official busi-^
ness. By the time they arrived at Antioch, about May of 215,
Caracalla was in a condition of nervous agitation which unfitted
him for serious military operations’-. As it happened, Vologases,
conscious of the precariousness of his own position, was careful to
avoid giving a pretext for hostilities. Sending an expedition into
Armenia under his freedman Theocritus, who led the troops to
disaster, Caracalla himself left Antioch for Alexandria, where he
directed personally a carefully contrived massacre of the inhabi-
tants. According to Dio and Herodian, they had incurred his
displeasure by certain pleasantries at his expense®, especially on
the forbidden subject of the death of Geta. This may have
sharpened his exasperation, but the nature of the measures which
he took to ensure their good behaviour while he carried on his
projected campaign in Parthia indicates that there had been a
serious outbreak of sedition, aggravated by the turbulence of
fugitives from the villages (p. 22)®.
The winter of 2 1 5—2 1 6 was again spent at Antioch. About May
216* Caracalla sent the kings of OsrhoSne and Armenia friendly
invitations to visit him, and, when they complied, kept them
prisoners; and Osrhoene was then incorporated in the province of
Mesopotamia. By now the situation had changed in Parthia, where
Vologases had been displaced by Artabanus (V). At the moment
the new ruler was in no better case than his brother had been to
oppose invasion. He had no choice, however, but to refuse a
demand from Caracalla for the hand of his daughter, since this
was only another way, as he knew, of demanding his kingdom®;
for Caracalla, in his r61e as a second Alexander, indulged the
ambition of uniting Romans and Parthians under a single diadem®.
In the summer of 2 16 he marched through Mesopotamia, crossed
the Tigris, and advanced to the eastern borders of Adiabene. He
never saw an enemy, Dio tells us, and the only effect of his de-
monstration was to provoke preparations for resistance. He retired
1 Dio Lxxvm, 20, I. ® Dio Lxxvm, 22, i; Herodian iv, 9, 2-3.
® For the expulsion of native Egyptians, /cal ii/£kt<rra aypoi/cot, cf.
Wilcken, Chrest. 22; Dio ixxnn, 23,2. ' t?:i
•Cf. G. F. Hill, y.R.S. VI, igiSi t6o-ij Dio lxxix, 27, 4, , ; ri?
® Dio lxxix, i, I. Herodian XV, 10, 2-4.^
so THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
into winter quarters at Edessa to organize an expedition for the
following year, but his influence with the troops was waning, and
the knowledge of this not only gave heart to the enemy but en-
couraged conspiracy among his olBcers. In the^ spring of 217,
when he was in the neighbourhood of Carrhae visiting a sanctuary
of Luna, he was assassinated (8 April) at the instigation of one of
his Praetorian Prefects, M. Opellius Macrinus, who had good
reason to fear for his own safety since a prophecy that he was to
become emperor had reached the suspicious ears of Caracalla.
VI. MACRINUS AND ELAGABALUS
As it happened, the prophecy came true. For want of a better
candidate Macrinus was proclaimed emperor by the troops en-
gaged in the Eastern expedition, and accepted by the other armies.
He was at once recognized by the Senate, which, at the moment,
was too much relieved by the removal of Caracalla to look closely
into the qualifications of the man who had supplanted him. In
reality Macrinus had much to recommend him to the Senate, He
was known as a conscientious lawyer with a regard for precedent,
and if he was the first eques^ and the first Mauretanian, to become
emperor, these disabilities, along with his personal diffidence,
seemed to promise that he would be amenable to senatorial in-
fluence. This anticipation he confirmed by his attitude to the
Senate and to Italy^, while at the same time he sought to win the
general goodwill by annulling the changes which Caracalla had
made in the duties on inheritances and manumissions. This con-
ciliatory policy was not without its effect upon civilian opinion,
but with the troops he was not so successful. It was as a lawyer
that he had been appointed Praetorian Prefect, and he had no
capacity or taste for military operations. He forestalled a threaten ed
outbreak in Dacia by returning hostages who had been taken by
Caracalla^, and put an end to the Armenian war by granting the
diadem to one of the sons (Tiridates) of the king whom Caracalla
had imprisoned®. In Mesopotamia, which the Parthians had
invaded, he met with a reverse near Nisibis in the summer of
217, and after protracted negotiations he had to pay a consider-
able sum to Artabanus to obtain peace. Though the troops had
no more stomach for fighting than he had himself, they resented
^ The iuridici Italiae, whose activity had been encroaching upon the
autonomy, of the Italian towns, were now restricted to the legal functions
assigned to them by Marcus Aurelius (Dio lxxix, 22, i). He even sent a
senator on official duty to l%ypt (Dio txxrx, 35, i ; c£ P.S.I. 249) — the first
breach of the August^ rule. ® Dio Lxxix, 27, 5. ® Ih. 27, 4.
I, VI] AN AS EMPEROR 51
this ill-success against an enfeebled enemy, and their dissatisfac-
tion was aggravated by their being deprived of privileges which
they had enjoyed under Garacalla and by the cutting down of
the rate of pay to that fixed by Severus, a reduction which was to
apply to future recruits only, but which aroused the suspicions of
the men on service. With so many units concentrated in the East,
in close touch with one another, disaffection had the means to
spread, and it communicated itself the more easily that the troops
were predisposed to it by their veneration for the Severan dynasty
and for the Antonine name borne by Caracalla, to whom they now
looked back with regret. Macrinus had to comply with their
demand that Caracalla should be deified; he himself took the name
of Severus, and in proclaiming as Caesar, and soon after as Augus-
tus, his nine-year-old son, Diadumenianus, he conferred upon him
the cognomen of Antoninus.
But there were representatives of the Severan household living
who would not allow the Antonine name to be so easily wrested
from them, and who saw in the feeling of the troops an opportunity
to recover the imperial dignity. Julia Domna had not long sur-
vived her disappointment at the apparent ruin of the dynasty
brought about by the death of Caracalla, but her sister, Julia
Maesa, had two grandsons to sustain a desperate hope. By her
marriage to a consular of the name of Julius Avitus (now dead) she
had had two daughters, Soaemias and Mamaea, each of whom
had a son. The elder of the two boys, Varius Avitus, then fourteen
years of age, was the son of Soaemias and a Syrian, Varius Mar-
cellus, who, after a distinguished equestrian career, had been made
a senator^. The younger, Gessius Bassianus Alexianus, ten years
of age, was the son of Mamaea and a Gessius Marcianus, also a
Syrian, who had held various procuratorships. Maesa had been
ordered by Macrinus to retire with her daughters to her home in
Syria. She could hardly have wished for a better base of opera-
tions. Here she enjoyed to the full the prestige which her family
derived from its hereditary priesthood of the venerated haal of
Emesa, an office now discharged by Soaemias’ son, Varius Avitus,
known henceforth as Elagabalus by identification with the god®
^ Cf. Dessau 478.
® Cf. Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxin, i and S.H.A. He/, i, 6 , where the
name, applied to both god and Emperor, is given as Heliogabalus through a
confusion with the Greek r Xtos. The same form of the name is used for the
god by Eutropius. On the coinage and in military diplomata the god appears
as Elagabalus, and similar forms are used by Dio and Herodian. Neither of
these ojntemporary writers ^plies the mme to the emperor, nor does Eu-
tropius. On the coinage also and in inscriptions it invariably indicates the god.
52 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
and credited^ with a personal beauty which enabled him to look
the part. With the soldiers he had additional recommendations in
the wealth of his grandmother and in the rumour, which she
herself spread about, that he was in reality the son of Caracalla;
and not far off, at Raphaneae, was the headquarters of the legion
III Gallica. The boy was taken to the camp by night through the
contrivance of Comazon Eutychianus, who was apparently Pre-
fect in charge, and on i6 May 218 at sunrise, the auspicious
hour for the young priest of baal znd his Syrian followers,
he was proclaimed emperor under the name which his reputed
(now to be his official) father had borne, Marcus Aurelius An-
toninus. Under the command of his tutor Gannys a considerable
force marched upon Antioch. Twenty-four miles to the east of
the city, on 8 June 218, it defeated Macrinus, who had been
deserted by most of his troops. He attempted to make his way in
disguise to Italy, but w^as arrested at Chalcedon and soon after-
wards was put to death. The same fate befell more than one legate
in the East who ventured to challenge his youthful successor^.
The events which led to the proclamation of Elagabalus display
at work the influences which were now controlling the govern-
ment of the Empire. From the confused interplay of circumstances
and personal motives two forces disengage themselves as decisive
— the army and the Severan household. The assertion of the
dynastic principle in an Oriental form had secured for the women
of the imperial family a power more unchallenged than had been
allowed to a Livia or an Agrippina under the Julio-Claudian
emperors. Augusta, mater patriae, mater senatus, mater castrorum,
Julia Domna had accumulated more titles of dignity and devotion
than any empress before her, and she had represented her son in
affairs of State. Soon her sister, Julia Maesa, also Augusta, will be
acting officially for her grandson, Elagabalus, and even inter-
vening in the deliberations of the Senate. But their private action
was more important than their public activity, now that the con-
centration of government within the palace had subjected it to the
play of personal influences.
If these Syrian women knew how to enjoy and indeed (by all
accounts) to abuse their opportunities, they knew also how to
suffer, and the pliancy and tenacity of personal ambition were
> : ‘ ^ H^ipdian V, 3, 6-8; S.H.A. Op. Macr. 9, 3; Vol. of Plates v, 168, r, d.
i t ^ Iho Lxxx, 7, 1—3, where mention is made of III Gallica, in Syria
Phoeflice, the h^on which had taken the lead in proclaiming Elagabalus,
arid of ly Scyffuca, one of the legions in Syria Coele. Ill Gdlica was dis-
banded (cf. Dessau 2657 with 2314-5)^
I, vi] THE WOMEN OF THE SEVERAN HOUSEHOLD 53
strengthened in them by their attachment to their dynasty. The
dynasty which they held together not only maintained internal
peace almost unbroken for nearly forty years, but gave to those
years a character in which it both expressed itself and drew out the
logical consequence for Roman culture of the imperial achieve-
ment and policy. The palace where they held court at Rome was a
meeting-place of East and West, and the Oriental element, now
entrenched within the Roman citizenship and government, invaded
also the whole field of Roman culture and religion. This is a matter
to be dealt with elsewhere in this volume (pp. 417, 613), though
there is one incident in the religious interchanges which must be
given a place here because it is almost the whole story of the reign
of Elagabalus.
In letters written from Antioch to Rome in his name Elagabalus
was made to assume the various imperial titles without waiting for
the decree of the Senate, but the implied denial of the Senate and
People as the source of his authority was modified by conciliatory
promises. Here we may recognize the hand of Julia Maesa,
despotic by policy as by family tradition, but experienced and
wary, with two astute advisers in Gannys and Comazon. By the
middle of July Elagabalus had been recognized by the Senate^,
and with this the stage was set for his appearance at Rome.
The following month Maesa and Soaemias sailed with the
young emperor to Bithynia, where they spent the winter (218—219)
at Nicomedia. Here Elagabalus insisted upon celebrating in
public the bizarre ritual of his cult, in which he made a resplendent
but very un-Roman figure. This perturbed Maesa, who knew the
capital and could judge how such performances were likely to be
received there. Remonstrance only provoked a furious resentment
which resulted in Gannys being killed.
A slow progress through the Danubian provinces brought the
procession to the gates of Rome in the late summer or the autumn
of 2 1 9®. The imperial family was accompanied by a troop of ex-
pectant Syrians, not many of whom can have been disappointed.
Some of them entered the Senate to reinforce the Oriental element
already preponderant there, and to help to justify the Emperor’s
description of its members as his mancipia togata^, Comazon,
Praetorian Prefect in 2 1 8, was consul in 220 with the Emperor as
his colleague, and more than once was Prefect of the City. For his
1 Cf. C./.L. VI, 2001, 2009 (Dessau 466).
® Eutropius vm, 22, with Dessau 2188, which implies that his arrival
was earlier, thou^ not much earlier, than September 29. 7 . , L
® S.H.A, iif/. 20, I. ; '"i- : r/i'.
54 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap.
career there was no precedent^, but about precedent the Emperor
cared nothing. He bestowed equestrian and even senatorial
oiBces upon his favourites without any regard to the qualifications
required by Roman administrative rules^.
The Western provinces, it is true, appear to have suffered little.
There was peace upon the frontiers, which suggests that the
mili tary command was vigilant, and there are many inscriptions
which tell of activity in the construction of roads and the erection
of buildings, civil as well as military. In the East the provinces
benefited more by the favour of an Oriental emperor than they
suffered from any defects in his governors; and in any case the
Eastern cities always felt the Roman method of efficiency as a
constraint and responded with resiliency when the tension was
relieved. A great abundance of local coinage shows that their
economic activity was never more lively than in this reign^.
It was within Rome itself that the Orientals looked mostly for
their opportunities, and it was the central administration that
suffered. Within the palace the imperial freedmen wielded a power
such as they had not possessed since the first century, and offices
were systematically sold. A barber, we are told, became Prefect
of the Annona; the department had to be re-organized by
Elagabalus’ successor. The same appears to have been true of the
financial system‘s. But though the jiscus was put in charge of an
Emesene of low character, the confiscations which Dio complains
of, the increased exaction of crown gold®, and the general disorder
into which the imperial finances fell may have been due less to the
rapacity or incompetence of officials than to the foolish liberality
by which the Emperor sought to win popular applause.
To Elagabalus Rome was merely a more conspicuous field for
his accustomed activities. He had his priesthood formally recog-
nized by the Senate, included it among his official titles and pro-
claimed it upon his coinage®. The black conical stone which was
the material embodiment of his god was brought from Emesa to
the capital, where it was enthroned in a shrine erected on the
Palatine alongside the imperial residence. Rumours of secret
, 1 Dio Lxxx, 4, 1-2.
; ® For a characteristic career of this period cf. Dessau 1329.
® E. Babdon, Rev. Num. iw sdr. ni, 1899, pp. 274-7.
* Cf. Gohen^ iv, p. 453, no. 516 for Severus Alexander as restiiuior
mmetaei cf. tk p. 420, no. 180; S.H.A. Jlex. Sev. 16, i; 39, 9. For the
Annona, ik 21, 93 22, 1-25 39, 3.
® P. Oxy. xii, 1441, intr.j XIV, 1659.
® Cohen^ iv, pp. 347-8, nos. 2:46-253; p. 350, nos. 276-277.
INFICTUS SJCERDOS JUGUSTUS
I. VI]
sacrifices there and ritual murders were willingly believed by
many who regarded with a suspicious distaste the chants and
ceremonies with which the god was honoured in public, notably
on the occasion of a procession at midsummer, when he was
conveyed to a temple in the outskirts of the city in a chariot
devoutly led by the Emperor himself and accompanied by a mag-
nificent cortege, in which senators and knights were expected to
consider it an honour to take part. Presently a female companion
was found for him, first in Minerva, and then, more conformably
to his character and to the family tradition of his priest, in the
Punic Taniri, and the nuptials were duly celebrated as a public
festival. The Emperor himself divorced a Julia Paula to marry
the Vestal Virgin, Aquilia Severa, excusing the sacrilege by
claiming for the marriage a religious function^. In effect, he
appears to have thought of it as an earthly rendering of the
celestial union. This notion of ritual analogy, of evoking by
representation the energies of the powers that controlled nature,
was nowhere more active than in the cult of the Syrian baalim
and their female counterparts, and the boy’s function as priest
would stimulate and indeed consecrate the sensualities and
perversions which we read of in Cassius Dio and in the bio-
graphy in the Historia Augusta. Rome was not now unfamiliar
with the naturalistic religions of the East nor incredulous of the
efficacy of their rites, but it was not prepared to see its emperor
serve as their minister. The incongruity of a circumcised Augustus,
who abstained from the flesh of swine to perform with a ritual
purity the obscenities of a Syrian cult and who paraded in public
tricked out in the effeminate finery prescribed by its ceremonial,
offended a public opinion which was not exacting in morals but
expected a traditional decorum from its rulers.
The offence was aggravated by Elagabalus’ claim of supremacy
for the provincial cult of which he was priest, and his placing in
the shrine of his god, as tokens of sovereignty, the symbols of other
deities. The acceptance of the sovereignty of the god would have
given a powerful religious sanction to his own rule, but to attri-
bute to him a policy of strengthening the imperial authority by
attaching it to a solar monotheism would be to magnify and indeed
invert the significance of his action, which was little more than ah
exhibition of childish egotism and of the contentiousness of Syrian
baal-woTshi'p. Nor was the tendency for the solar cults to become
^ See Volume of Plates V, 156, li. ’
® apfib^^ovrd ts /cal ae^dafiiov elvai ydjMv tepia)<i re /cal lepeia^,
Herodian v, 6, 2; cf. Dio txxx, 9,' '3, ' ' . , ' ,
56 THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE [chap. I, vi
unified directing itself to a true monotheism, but rather, _ through
syncretism, towards an abstraction or a pantheism; and it was an
intellectual movement. Among the mass of solar devotees Ae
recognition of an affinity between their cults did not diminish
mutual jealousy or local exclusiveness. Not even a priest who was
also Roman emperor could identify the solar religion with one of
its local forms. Still less could he make his baal ruler of the Roman
pantheon^. The established religion was too closely interconnected
with official and popular life for any serious displacement or re-
adjustment to be made without such a disturbance of rooted
institutions and inveterate habits as would not be supportable
without a profound change of the general conscience. So far from
inducing such a change the baal of Emesa by its pretensions pro-
voked a reaction of traditional feeling which expressed itself in
the nickname of ‘the Assyrian’ contemptuously applied to the
emperor who was its priest.
The women of the imperial family became aware of an ap-
proaching crisis. Julia Maesa, resolved to save the dynasty if
anything should happen to Elagabalus, played upon his impatience
of affairs of State as distracting him from his priestly preoccupa-
tions to induce him to adopt his cousin Alexianus under the name
of Marcus Aurelius Alexander and to associate him with himself
in the government as Caesar^. He soon became aware that the
effect of the adoption was to organize against himself the favour
with which his cousin was generally regarded, and twice he
attempted to procure his assassination. This aroused the Prae-
torians to action, not perhaps without the instigation of Mamaea
and the connivance of Maesa, and on March 1 1, 222® he and his
mother were killed in the palace. His body was dragged through
the streets to the Aemilian bridge, where it was thrown into the
Tiber with a weight attached to it. The god was involved in the
condemnation of the Emperor’s memory and the annulment of his
acts. In the form of the black stone he was sent back to his home,
where, however, his prestige was apparently undiminished, and
perhaps enhanced, by his Roman adventure^.
^ Such evidence as there is for the worship of Elagabalus indicates a local,
or at least a purely Oriental cult (Dio Lxxix, 31,1; Herodian V, 3, 45 Ann.
ip. 1910, nos. 133, 141). There is nothing to show that the Emperor enlarged
i;s vogue. With three doubtful exceptions (Dessau 4329, 4330, 4332) all
odcurrmc^ of the name in mscriptions after 218 are in the imperial titles,
where it was erased along with the Emperor’s name after his death.
® Not later than 10 JuN (cf. C.I. L. vi, 200 1 5 Dessau 466), and apparently
before i June 221 {C.Lh. n, 3069).
» Dio Lxxx, 3, 3, confirmed \sy Q.l.L. vi, 1454.
^ Cf. S.H.A. 25, 3— 6,
CHAPTER II
THE SENATE AND THE ARMY ^
I. SEVERUS ALEXANDER: DOMESTIC POLICY
T he new emperor, Alexander, was born in the Phoenician
town of Area Caesarea, i October 208 is usually given as
his birthday. It is true that he, like his predecessor, was dedicated
to the service of the Sun God of Eraesa, but his mother, Julia
Maraaea, who had gone to Rome with her imperial nephew, had
been sensible enough to keep her son away from the practices of
his cousin. Julia Maesa was therefore able to play him off against
Elagabalus, when the Augustus had fallen into contempt and the
position reached its crisis. The over-tension of a despotism that
was alien in character led to Elagabalus’ bloody end, but this
was not due merely to race-hatred, for Rome was already
permeated with Oriental elements and was used to them. By
intelligent management the Syrian princesses achieved their
purpose : Alexander was proclaimed Augustus, and was accepted
without protest by the Senate.
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, as he was now called,
ascended the throne in his fourteenth year (6 or 1 1 March 222). It
is certain that his mother, in view of his expected succession to the
Empire and because of her active interest in the spiritual currents
of the time, had given her son the best of educations, and the
Emperor doubtless continued to receive her maternal care. He
may indeed have been a well-brought-up and charming youth,
with a great desire to learn, and matured at an early age. How-
ever, what his later biographer in the Historia Augusta has to say
Note. The main literary evidence for the reigns described in this
chapter is to be found in Dio lxxvii— lxxx (Boissevain), Herodian v-vm,
Orosius VII, Zosimus i, and Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Alexander
Severus, Maximini duo, Gordiani tres, Maximus et Balbinus. On the value
of this last source in particular see below pp. 58 sqq. and the Appendix on
Sources at the end of the volume. More incidental references in ancient
writers and relevant Papyri are given in the Bibliography to the chapter.
The most important inscriptions are cited in the footnotes to the
chapter together with passages from the Codex 'Justinianus and the Digest.
The coins supply at times important evidence, on which see the footnotes
and the Bibliography A (2).
Coins of these feigis are illustrated ip Volume of Plates v, 168, 2;jo, 232,
where also will be found portraits of S^erus Alexander and Gordian III.
58 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
on details of his manners and character is not to be used as a really
historical account. For in this account Alexander’s permanent
lack of independence is ignored, and the picture is drawn of the
ideal restitutor rei fublicae—ia. picture which made such an im-
pression on Jakob Burckhardt that to him ‘this person so incom-
prehensible against the background of his times ’ could appear as
‘a true St Louis of antiquity^.’ But there was no Life of a Saint
in the mind of the biographer: for, as has been showm'^, it is the
picture of Julian which is reflected in the Life of Alexander. W hen,
further, the writer of the Vita., like other sources, infers from the
name Severus the Emperor’s especial severity tow^ards the soldiers,
he contradicts his own observations upon his hero as a friend of
the military. But, above all, this interpretation misunderstands the
point in the programme of the government which seems bound up
with the choice of this name — the linking of the regime with the
founder and the good times of the Severan dynasty. Alexander meets
us in inscriptions as ‘Divi Severi nepos,’ ‘Divi Magni Antonini Pii
filius,’ and in his decrees he speaks of ‘divi parentes mei’ and calls
Caracalla ‘pater meus®.’ Passing over Elagabalus, he deliberately
proclaims himself the youngest and true scion of the dynasty of
the Severi. Herein we see the influence of the two Augustae —
for Mamaea also had by now been elevated to that rank.
Now that they had so plainly set this end before them, the
imperial princesses, Mamaea in particular at this time, shrewdly
recognizing the demands of the age, were able to steer the ship
of State upon a changed course towards the desired goal. The new
government broke with the challenging religious policy of its
predecessor, which had awakened disgust and loathing even in
the altered Roman character, and went back to the traditional
religious practices. It also made an attempt to allow the senatorial
class, whose position in the State was threatened, to play once
more, at least in appearance, an honourable role, and this without
any change of the dynastic purpose and without any diminution
of the historically established authority of the emperor and its
sole prerogative. But whether the young emperor’s Council of
Regency, entrusted to sixteen chosen senators of high standing,
or_even the Council of State {consilium princtpis), to which, besides
men of equestrian rank, many senators were summoned, could
effectively throw their weight into the scales, remains an open
^ Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen^, p. 14.
® By N. H. Baynes, The Historia Augusta, its date and purpose.
® D^u 479, 480. 8920-1. Cod. Just. IV, I, 2; cf. Ulpian, Dig. xii,
2, 13, 6. Cod. Just, n, 8; XH, 35, 4.
II, I] A NEW ORDER? 59
question. Still, Herodian received the impression that under
Severus Alexander’s government the People and the army and
even the Senate were content with the form of the imperial rule,
which from a disgraceful tyranny had assumed the appearance of
an aristocracy. This judgment, which already overstressed the
goodwill of the new r%ime to the senatorial order, then became
the point of departure for a valuation which saw in the govern-
ment’s actions, not only the expected opposition to the indefensible
conditions of the immediately preceding years, but also a yet more
significant opposition to the policy inaugurated by Septimius
Severus, who, realizing the practical needs of the Empire, had
sought to conciliate and favour both the army and the equestrian
class. Thus the impression is in fact created that through a
thorough-going reform the re-establishment of the Augustan
principate was being attempted, while in many modern accounts
this fiction is carried to such lengths as to give rise to a belief in
the revival of senatorial supremacy.
But the only basis for this view is, unfortunately, the Vita Alex-
andria a biography which has been described as a historical noveP.
For apart from the Regency Council of Sixteen already mentioned,
nothing is said by Herodian or Cassius Dio about changes in the
established governmental order. It is true that the historian Dio
can show us how, in the mind of a man who was an active politician
and was permitted to hold along with the Emperor a second
consulate in 229, facts and wishes combined to shape his thoughts
on the relation of the monarchy and the Senate. The beginning of
Augustus’ principate gave the historian an opportunity for having
the question of a re-establishment of the Republic or a creation of
a monarchy discussed by Maecenas and Agrippa in set speeches
before Augustus. In this discussion Dio reveals his own attitude
on the question. Agrippa defends the re-establishment of the
Republic with ideas and phrases borrowed from the language of
the schools of rhetoric; but the possibility of their practical
realization can at most have played a part only in the dreams of
incurable romanticists. Maecenas, however, advocates the mon-
archy as a necessity, and, furthermore, his monarchy bears the
features of the time when the second century was passing into the
third. It is true that no mention is made of the actual power of
the armies. Yet the monarchy does not figure as dependent on the
Senate. A demand is indeed made for the honours due to this
corporation, based on the reflection that ‘it is in the nature of men
^ By so high an authority on the Historia Augusta as E. Hohl. See
Profylden-JVeltgeschichte ii, p. 422. •/ , , . ,s ■
6 o THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
to find pleasure in being reckoned by the more powerful as of
equal rank^.' If the Senate thus remains— to quote another of
Dio’s phrases— ‘ the ornament of the Stated’ the noble gesture may
suffice which leaves to it the appearance of an extensive authority^.
But this only strengthens the other demands that the emperor
should have the sole right of appointing officials and that a larger
sphere should be given to the equestrian order in the administra-
tion of the empire. While fully safeguarding their high dignity,
Maecenas is yet willing to see the old magistrates treated as hardly
more than municipal officials. He even speaks in favour of the
assimilation of Italy in administration to the provinces of the
empire. Since Dio can hardly be considered an opponent of the
Senate, his Maecenas speech indicates the highest role which an
intelligent senator could at that time expect his order to fill. Thus
where the Vita Alexandri exceeds these limits in describing the
Senate’s power, its credibility is in any case poor. And not much
more effective are the arguments for the theory that the speech of
Maecenas is a criticism of the actual or contemplated reforms of
the Emperor. This is so even if allusions are made in Dio’s
programme-speech to matters which were actually handled
differently by Severus Alexander’s government.
It is of little importance that a change was made in the cursus
honorum of the senators, and that the number of those who after
the quaestorship could omit the tribunate or aedileship and rise at
once to the praetorship appears to have been now considerably
increased, so that these two intermediate stages soon vanished com-
pletely, But the burdening of the quaestorship with the expenses
of the games prevented this abridgment of the cursus honorum
from being a relief. It may, however, be regarded as an increase
in prestige that the curatores regionum urhis sacrae, who were
associated with the City Prefect, had now to be of consular rankA
A reform that cut deeper may be detected in the biographer’s
account of the change in the position and rank of the Praetorian
Prefects®. In this very confused report, which does not do justice
to the previous exceptional cases and confounds the granting of
the ornamenta with the real adlectio inter senatores, we must attribute
an increased importance to the sentence, ‘praefectis praetorii suis
senatoriam addidit dignitatem, ut viri clarissimi et essent et
dicerentur,’ The epigraphical material shows, indeed, for the
^ 32, I. ® Dio xxxvn, 26, 3. » Dio ui, 31, i.
* S.H.A. Jkx. Sev. 33, 1} cf. Defflau 1209 and E. Kornemann, P.W.
s.v. Curatores, col. 1797.
® S.H,A. ./fex 21, 3-5,
II. I] REFORMS: THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT 6i
period after Severus Alexander, that the incompatibility of the
position of Praetorian Prefect with actual membership of the
senatorial order did, in fact, no longer exist; but it is still true that
this Prefecture continued to be in the majority of cases the crown
and consummation of an equestrian career. For the reign of
Severus Alexander there exists only one piece of trustworthy
evidence in a papyrus of a.d. 232^, bearing an official character,
in which the prefects, whose names are not mentioned, are termed
lamfrotatoi, that is, mri clarissimt. On the other hand, we find that
the title eminentissimus vir was still retained. This title had been
reserved solely for the Praetorian Prefects, and they may have
continued to use it, to show their exceptional position, even when in
virtue of the imperial decree they were ennobled as viri clarissimt^.
Further, when one sees that Ulpian, even before his Prefecture,
was concerned with the rank of the Praetorian Prefects and con-
sidered it correct that a vir praefectorius who had not yet been
granted the consular ornamenta have precedence over the
wife of a consularis vir^y the conclusion may be drawn that this
influential man had endeavoured to obtain a rise in rank in the
sense indicated. Furthermore, the biographer claims to know that
the Emperor, the friend of the patres, took this step in order to
prevent a non-senator from sitting in judgment on a senator.
Actually, however, with all respect for the wishes of the senators,
the result of this change could only be to enlarge the judicial
powers of the Praetorian Prefects and at the same time to
strengthen the authority of the emperor. The composition of
the consilium which was summoned by the emperor may also re-
flect a concession to the Senate. Nevertheless, in the inclusion of
the iuris consulti we may recognize the co-operation of the eques-
trian officials in the central administration, admitting, however,
the possibility that those jurists, especially, who came from the
equestrian order such as Ulpian, for example, and probably
Paulus too, could play a leading r61e thanks to their superior
knowledge of business methods.
Thus we can accept the fact that a change did occur in favour
of the Senate, but not to the extent that the Historia Augusta would
^ U. Wilcken, Phil, jliii, 1894. p. 81 = Chrestomathie i, no. 41, col.
m, 13.
2 This view has already been advocated, as against A. Stein (Der romsche
Riiterstandyip^. 252, 254/^., 260 ry.), by E. Stein, Geschichie des spatromischen
Reiches, i, p. 53 n. 3, and recently by P. Lambrechts, La Composition du Senat
romain de Sepfime Sh/h^e d DiocUtien,p. ioy, , .
® Dig.s,g, I pr. ; , i:
62
THE SENATE. AND THE ARMY
[CHAF.
lead us to believe. It is certain that there was a desire to make
concessions to the prestige of the Senate. The government might
even hope thereby to gain an increase in strength and to create
or to preserve a certain counterweight against the excessive
demands of a pampered army. With all this the -patres could
naturally indulge the hope of better times; but, with the complete
collapse of such hopes in the confusions and crises which followed,
the memory of Severus Alexander’s reign was likely to be coloured
with the rosy tints of a dream. And although the young emperor,
under the influence of his entourage, appears to have been neither
desirous nor, because of his lack of force, capable of turning back
the wheel of history, yet, while the Empire continued its ever-
advancing development towards autocratic absolutism, Alexander’s
reign shows one more endeavour to let the Senate play its rdle
within the limits of possibility as ‘the ornament of the State.’
The accession of Alexander had been accompanied by the
damnatio memoriae of Elagabalus with all its consequences. Sure
proof of this is found in the erasure of his name from the in-
scriptions. But the change of personnel in the government was
not so important as the biographer asserts, if even a Comazon
Eutychianus, to whom Elagabalus owed his accession to the throne,
became fraejectus urbi once more. Cassius Dio was, it is true, not
subject to the same odium, but he had been in the previous reign
£rar<?/i?r of Pergamum and Smyrna, and now he was made proconsul
of Africa and afterwards governor first of Dalmatia and then of
Upper' Pannonia. On the other hand, L. Marius Maximus
appears to have been rewarded with the consulate of 223 because
he had not served under Elagabalus. The Praetorian Prefecture
was given to Flavianus and Chrestus, who had both probably taken
part in the overthrow of Elagabalus and of their predecessors
in this ofiice. The jurist Domitius Ulpianus was promoted as early
as March 222 to ht fraejectus annonae, and was already Praetorian
Prefect before i December^. The empress-mother had seen in him
the man who, thanks to his legal knowledge and his experience
of affairs since the reign of Septimius Severus, could in this ofiice
render the best service to the Empire, and one who also appeared
willing to keep the insolent Praetorians in check. In this policy,
however, he does not seem to have received from his two colleagues
the support that was expected; for, when an attempt on his life
was discovered, Ulpian believed that both were implicated in the
^ Cod. Just, vxxi, 37, 4; ir, 65, 4, where he is termed by the Emperor
'praefectus praetorio ef parens meus'
II, I] ULPIAN 63
plot and in consequence both were put to death. Nor was he
capable, as events proved, of mastering the Guard, For trivial
reasons street-fighting broke out in Rome between the soldiers
and the populace and lasted for three days, when the people were
forced to give up the conflict for fear the troops might set fire to
the whole city. Finally the man whose intelligent and far-sighted
rule might have brought further blessings to the Empire fell a
victim to his Praetorians in the very palace of the Emperor, who
was unable to protect him. Whether Ulpian had up till then been
sole Prefect cannot be safely afiirmed or denied from our sources,
although the subsequent history of his office rather points to a
negative conclusion^. Nor is the date of his death recorded. There
is no reason to put it very near the beginning of his Prefecture®;
but one might well be tempted to connect the bloody riot of the
Praetorians with the difficulties and dissensions in the imperial
household.
Mamaea had married her son in 225 to a woman of a senatorial
family, Cn. Seia Herennia Sallustia Barbia Orbiana, the daughter
of Seius (?) Sallustius Macrinus®. Orbiana received the rank of
Augusta, and her father became Caesar. But good relations did
not long continue in the imperial house. Even in the lifetime of
her mother Maesa, Mamaea had obtained the predominant
influence, and, when her mother died and was consecrated Diva,
she saw that the time had come for her to exercise as ‘mater
Augusti et castrorum’ a quasi-autocracy. Ambitious as she was,
she now became jealous of the real or supposed influence of her
daughter-in-iaw. The masterful and imperious conduct of the
empress-mother caused the Caesar to turn with complaints to the
Praetorians; but this only cost him his life on the ground of
attempted revolution, and his daughter was forced to go into exile
in Africa (227/8). From this time onwards Severus Alexander
remained unmarried; for Mamaea guarded against a repetition
of this experiment. Coins of the Emperor with the legends ‘ Salus ’
and ‘Felicitas Augusti’ and those of Mamaea with ‘Felicitas
^ Zosimus (i, 1 1 , 3) describes Ulpian as sole Prefect after the removal of his
two colleagues. A final decision depends on the chronology of the Prefecture
from the time of Domitius Honoratusj cf. Lambrechts, op. cit. p. 105 and
A. Jarde, Etudes critiques sur la vie et la regne de SSvire Alexandre, p. 39.
The fact, also, that there were two Prefects after 241 (p. 82) suggests
that Ulpian did not remain alone in that office.
® Jard6, op. cit. p. 39 n. i. ; - ; ;
» Cf. A. Stein, P.W. r.iu. Sallustius (4), ;col 19105 M. Fluss, jid,
Seius (22), col. 1128. -
64 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
publica’ proclaim the success and desires of the empress-mother.
Soon after this, her title was enlarged to that of ‘mater August! et
castrorum et senatus atque patriae,’ and finally she is even likened
to the mother of the gods with the addition of ‘ et universi generis
humani^.’ One may presume that the Praetorians, who with the
collapse of the Caesar Sallustius had lost an opportunity of showing
their power, now became refractory. Their anger was finally
discharged upon Ulpian, whose death may thus be placed in the
year 228. This may also explain why the Emperor suggested to
Cassius Dio, his colleague in the consulship for 229, that he
should spend his consulate outside Rome; for Dio had gained the
dislike of his Pannonian troops by his strict enforcement of
military discipline, and thus was rendered suspect to the Prae-
torians also. Dio’s proud resolution is proved by his showing
himself nevertheless to the soldiers in Rome and in Campania in
the company of the Emperor before leaving for his Bithynian
home. Small wonder, then, that he concluded his history with
the words of the Iliad :
‘ And Zeus drew Hector to safety from the shafts and dust, from blood-
shed, slaughter, and the din of strife.*’
Examples of this sort prove the weakness of the Emperor in the
face of the soldiers. He did not even venture to proceed directly
against Epagathus, the chief culprit in the murder of Ulpian, and
he was only brought to book when Alexander had got him out
of the way by promoting him to the governorship of Egypt.
But the tension between the soldiery and the government could
not be lessened, since the imperious Mamaea, who doubtless
knew how to appreciate the power of money, was suspected of
having become miserly to the detriment of the troops.
Disorder in the finances assuredly demanded the cutting down
of expenses to bare necessities. But recognition of the crisis and
efforts to meet it could do but little to better conditions as a whole.
Many taxes may have been abolished, or at least reduced; but
whether the aurum eoronarium was among these must remain
uncertain®. In any event, in view of the needs of the State, no
^ Dessau 485. She appears as Dea Panthea with the attributes of Diana,
Victoria and Felicitas on a medallion in the British Museum. See Volume
of Plates V, 230, i.
■ * .'’EicTO/ja S’ €K ^ekicov v-rraye Zev 9 e/c re KOviris:
lKrdvBpoKTacrir)9eKd’a?iiaTo9exr€KvSoi/xov. J/rW XI, 163-4.
® So lon^ as the attribution of P. Fsyiim 20 (Bruns’, no. 96) to Severus
Alocander is not proved beyond doubt. For references see W, Ensslin,
Kite xvm, 1923, p. 129 sq. and M. Rostovtzeff, Sec. and Been. Hist. p. 6l i,
n. 56; Germ. Ed. n, p, 350, n. 56,
II, I] FINANCES AND ECONOMY 65
reduction of taxes can have been made to the extent asserted by
the Historia Augusta. And if in some rare instances a shifting of
obligations from the traders to the producers was attempted, this
did not reduce the burden of taxes sustained by the general public.
The government persisted in the further collection of an addi-
tional tax {anabolikon) on raw and manufactured products from
Egypt, since the free market was unable to satisfy particular
requirements, especially those of the imperial capital. It is true
that the fiscal administration was ordered to deal justly and
moderately with the subjects, but at the same time there can be
traced an intelligible anxiety to secure that the taxes prescribed by
law were in fact duly paid. Forced labour and liturgies, that is to
say compulsory service of all kinds, remained as formerly a heavy
burden on the lower classes of the population. In this connection
it is possible that the relations of the State with the collegia — the
various guilds of ship-owners, merchants and craftsmen — were
subjected to a revision. There was no nationalization, but there
may well have been a more rigorous control of those corporations
whose services were of paramount importance to the State. From
this time onwards the old formula ‘permitted by decision of
the Senate’ Iguibus ex S.C. coire licet) disappears, and we may see
therein a cessation of private enterprise in the formation of such
guilds, the place of which may have been filled by some inter-
vention on the part of the State. A better employment of State-
industry to repair the finances is shown, for instance, in the crea-
tion of the ratio furpuraria^ which appears under Severus Alexander
and is probably to be connected with sale of purple from imperial
factories^. On the other hand we cannot speak of a reform of the
monetary system ; only the extensive minting of a copper currency
of good quality seems to point to some effort at improvement. The
legends on the coins, ‘ Moneta Restituta ’ and ‘ Restitutor Monetae,’
refer only to the recoining of the dupondius^\ the coins in precious
metals are no better than they were under Alexander’s predecessors.
It appears, however, that there were discussions at this time of pro-
jects prompted by the extensive depopulation of important areas.
Thus Dio, through the mouthpiece of Maecenas, advocates the
founding of a State mortgage-bank®, and the beginnings of a State
credit policy towards owners of land can still be traced in our sources.
The government, too, despite the weakness of the financial
position, maintained the traditional expenditure. Five congiaria
^ Cf. M. Bang in L. Friedlander, Sittengesehichte Roms, iv, 1921, p. 54.
® K. Pink, Num. Z.,.N.F. xxvm, 193S, pp. 13, 16. 4 ;. ; j -
8 Dio nn, 28, 3 '
cjuH. xa . . ■ ■ • ' > ■ . ^ 3 '
66 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
were made in cash, payments to the Roman populace on the
occasions of the three consulates of the Emperor, perhaps at the
eonsecration of the temple of Juppiter Ultor and after the Persian
war. Rome was embellished with magnificent buildings. On the
Campus Martius the Baths of Nero were enlarged to create the
Thermae Alexandrianae, equipped with a separate water-supply
and a library, in the construction of which Sextus Julius Africanus
assisted (p. 477). Also the Baths of Caracalla were completed and
the Amphi^eatrum Flavium was restored. In Italy and the
provinces works of public utility, such as bridges, aqueducts and
baths, were undertaken, and to meet the cost of these part of the
revenue of the cities was placed at their disposal. The building and
improvement of roads, especially in the Danubian provinces,
served at the same time the special purpose of increasing Rome’s
military preparedness. There was further undertaken an extension
of the frontier defences in the direction begun by Septimius Severus
(p. 32. ), whereby in certain provinces the peasants of the frontier
districts were concentrated in fortified places; and thus was
pressed forward the assimilation of the rural population to the
frontier troops now transformed into settlers. With this went the en-
deavour, not exactly to urbanize that part of the population which
was important for military purposes, but as far as possible to render
it more civilized. The literary papyri which have been found are
evidence for the spread of school education ; and we know from
a passage in Ulpian^ that there were elementary teachers even in
the villages. In this passage the principle Is maintained that these
teachers should not be exempt from the services required by the
State, but that the amount of such services should be fixed by
agreement with the provincial governors. There is reason to think
that Ulpian was in general keenly interested in the provincial
administration : he had devoted a part of his extensive writings to
the duties of its ofiBcials. We can hardly therefore assume that
during his prefecture administrative practice was in essentials
altered from that which prevailed before the reign of Eiagabalus.
There is certainly no reason to think that a beginning had already
been made in the separation of civil and military authority in the
provincial administration. As one special case, it is worth ob-
serving that, in spite of the extension of the citizenship by Cara-
call% a decree of 224 enjoined on the provincial governors the
duty of keeping to the existing customary law®. A comparison
. 1 t, 5, 2, 8.
® Cod. Just, vmt, 52j I : ^nam et cmsmtuda praecedens et ratio quae
consuetudtnem suatit custodienda est, et tte quid contra longam consaetudtnem
fiat, ad soUkitucSnem suam revocaUt praeses provinciaei’ Cf. Dig. 1, 3, 33, 34 .
II, I] PUBLIC WORKS, CRIMINAL LAW 67
with two passages from Ulpian’s de officio froconsulis reveals the
author of the decree.
The other legislation affords evidence of some improvements
in the civil law, but it still follows the trend of those legal concep-
tions which the jurisprudence of that epoch had developed. In his
handling of the criminal law Severus Alexander deliberately sets
his own age in opposition to the rdgime of his predecessor,
especially as regards the Lex lulia maiestatis, where a tendency
to lessen the harshness of the law can be observed. The Emperor
himself says ‘etiam ex aliis causis maiestatis crimina cessant meo
saeculo^.’ On the other hand he speaks in the Lex lulia de adulteriis
of the ‘castitas temporum meorum,’ and demands a stricter
enforcement of penalties^. An identification with the prevailing
juristic trend can perhaps be seen in a rescript on the Lex Cornelia
de falsis in the formula ‘secta mea non patitur®.’ In any event the
proceedings against the Christians under this government were
not conducted in accordance with the letter of the existing regula-
tions. If it is true that in the seventh book de officio froconsulis
Ulpian adopted a codification under the lex maiestatis rather
than under the sacrilegia^ of the penalties prescribed against the
Christians, reason for this procedure could be seen in the more
lenient application of the former law. But to this the will and
desire of the empress-mother may have contributed with even
greater force. However strong the endeavour to wipe out the
memory of the invasion of unmixed Orientalism into religious
worship, the fact of a far-advanced syncretism remains. The in-
creasing permeation of religion with the philosophy of the time,
or, perhaps more correctly speaking, the permeation of this
philosophy with religious elements is reflected in the attitude of
the circles interested in matters of the spirit. Mamaea was no
Julia Domna; still she was acquainted with the spiritual currents
of her day, and she may have concerned herself with the ‘new
philosophy.’ Hippolytus of Rome could thus dedicate to her a
treatise on the Resurrection, and later, during the Persian war,
she summoned Origen to the imperial headquarters in order to
acquaint herself with his theology. But all this, in spite of the
Christian tradition from the time of Eusebius, does not make
Mamaea a Christian. ■
The same is true of her son, even if there is nothing extra-
^ Cod. Just. IX, 8, 1} cf. XK, 8, 2 and iv, i, 2.
® Ib. IX, 9, 9. ■ . ' ■ ' ^ I-;.’. ’ \
® /A rk, 22, 5; cf. EX, ... ' >
^ P. Jars, P.W. s.v. Donudus (88), oil. i 4 S 3 n* k . -
68 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
ordinary in the account given by His biographer of the erection
of a statue of Christ together with other figures worthy of reverence
in the imperial Lararium or house-chapel^. Benevolent tolerance
of the Christians^ which was probably affected by an increasing
nxmxber of believers in the imperial household, is the kernel round
which the later legend was able to grow. It, however, is
quite understandable that the Christians in the Emperor’s en-
tourage should have made use of the change in the administration
of the law of treason to improve the lot of their brethren, since in
general the reign propagated the idea of a State ruled by law. For
this one has only to read the ordinance on the possibility of direct
appeal to the emperor, which was intended to meet the excesses of
the procurators and governors, who, it is true, felt in their turn the
pressure of the fiscal authorities®, or the preamble to a decree by
which not even the emperor could become an heir if a will were
not formally completed^. Here it is expressly stated that ‘even
though the law conferring the imperial authority {lex imperit) may
have released the emperor from the ordinary formalities of the
laws, there is nothing which would be so peculiarly characteristic
of the imperial power as to live according to the laws.’ Perhaps we
have here a personal expression of opinion by Alexander, since
Ulpian had, for certain cases, laid down the principle that the
emperor is above the laws — ‘princeps legibus solutus est®.’
II. SEVERUS ALEXANDER: FOREIGN POLICY
The reign began with a few years of relative quiet, and there
was reason to hope that the tasks of internal reconstruction
could be advanced in peace. Riots of the Mauri in Tingitana,
campaigns against the Isaurian hill-tribes and a single inroad by
some Germans did not give rise to any serious alarm®. But
towards the end of this decade a threatening storm arose from the
east. The Parthian empire had succumbed to the attack of the
^ Cf. G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer, p. 92. A. Momigliano,
Athenaeum N.S. xii, 1934, pp. 1 51 sqq., attempts to support the account of
Severus Alexander’s philo-Semitism, but cf. E. Hohl, Bursian, 256, 1937,
p. 156.
2 The attempt of G. Kruger {Die Rjchtsstellung der voriomtantinischen
Kirchen, pp. 273, 292) to infer more than this from our sources must fail by
reason.; of its defective criticism of the statements of the Historia Augusta
(cf eq>edally p. 247, n. 4). » Dig. xux, 12, 5 = P. Oxy. xvii, 2104.
^ Cod. Just. VI, 23, 3 of the year 232. ® Dig. i, 3, 31.
* Cf H. Nissen, Bonner Jahrb. cm, 1898, p. 114 with j. Vogt, Die
alexandrinischen Mmzen, i, p. 1 86, and Ritterling, P.W. s.v. Lerio. col.
I 429 ,U. 68fyy.
II, n] THE PERSIAN DANGER 69
Persians under Ardashir (Artaxerxes) the son of Pabak. After
the overthrow of the Arsacid Artabanus V, Ardashir had become
King of Kings by the grace of Ormuzd (see below, chap. iv).
A pronounced national sentiment, supported by intense religious
feeling for the possession of Zarathustra’s teaching in what they
thought was its old purity, animated the king and his fellow-
warriors. With the coming of this new Persian empire of the
Sassanids — as they are called after the grandfather of the first
king — the East laid aside its defensive policy for an offensive.
Ardashir already envisaged as his political goal the re-establish-
ment of the old empire of the Achaemenids. Rome’s claim to
universal empire was now matched by that of a new and powerful
State. By the issue of a gold coinage the king opposed to the
hitherto unchallenged prerogative of the Empire a claim to an
equality of rights. In the year 230 alarming news reached Rome.
Ardashir had broken into Mesopotamia and was besieging
Nisibis ; his horsemen were already endangering Syria and Cappa-
docia. Diplomatic action led to no result. War was inevitable and
demanded the use of strong forces. The supreme command must
be assumed by the Emperor in person — the need was admitted
by Mamaea, concerned though she was for her son. Wide and
careful preparations were made for the campaign. Troops were
raised in Italy and the provinces. It is possible that the legion IV
Italica was recruited on this occasion. Detachments (vextllationes)
were summoned from the legions on the Rhine and the Danube.
P. Sallustius Sempronius Victor^ received an extraordinary com-
mand of the fleet to secure the seas and protect the dispatch of
reinforcements.
In the spring of 23 1 Severus Alexander left his imperial capital
accompanied by his mother. On his overland route to the East
he collected an army which, consisting of picked troops, seemed
equal to the task which lay before it. It was not clear, however,
what was the temper of these forces, in spite of the repeated
minting of coins with the legends ‘Fides exercitus’ and ‘Fides
militum.’ The repetition of Ais rallying-cry rather gives one the
impression that desire and reality did not correspond. Not long
before, the legions in Mesopotamia — Parthica I and III — in spite
of the dangers of the hour had mutinied and killed the governor
Flavius Heracleo^. And when the Emperor had established his
headquarters at Antioch, and from there had sent a second
embassy to Ardashir, with, it is true, no better result, riots had
^ Stein, P.W» r.t;. Sallustius (21), col. 1958.
® Rkterling, P.W.,f.ffl. Ijegio, col. 1331. ;
70 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
to be suppressed among the Eastern contingents. A usurper,
named Uranius Antoninus, whose name and coins^ suggest a
reaction of the admirers of Elagabalus, had risen in Edessa with
the support of Syrian troops, perhaps legio III Gallica. There
was also a mutiny among the detachments summoned from
Egypt, who certainly belonged to the II Traiana^.
These unwelcome events were the prelude to the opening of
the Persian war in 232. The army of operations was divided into
three parts. In the north the division of the left marched towards
Media by way of Armenia, where Rome’s allies the Arsacids still
maintained their resistance. The division of the right advanced in
a south-easterly direction over the route taken by Septimius
Severus in 197 (see above, p, 6). The main army, under the com-
mand of the Emperor himself, was intended to advance eastwards
through North Mesopotamia. But the excessive caution of
Alexander prevented these latter troops from ever engaging the
enemy. Ardashir was thus able to concentrate superior forces
and annihilate the right wing as it was operating on the Euphrates.
Thereupon the Emperor, who with all the European soldiers was
suffering severely from the climate, withdrew his own forces and
ordered the northern division also to retreat to Antioch. This
division had successes to record in Atropatene, but during its
retreat it suffered severely in the Armenian highlands from the
inclement weather. In spite of all this the enemy themselves must
have sustained no inconsiderable losses; for the Persian king
nowhere pressed the pursuit, and even remained inactive for four
years. The Roman offensive had failed. Its net result was the
doubtful success of seeing the frontier for the time being still
intact. And now a new peril threatened in the West. The re-
moval of strong forces stirred up the Germans. The danger of
a war on two fronts, which Augustus had sought to avoid by a
diplomatic solution of the Eastern question, and which later had
proved no real danger because of the growing weakness of Parthia,
remained from now onwards an anxiety and heavy burden on those
who directed the foreign policy of the Empire. The news from the
West caused the vesdllationes drawn from that quarter to demand
their immediate return. Herein was shown the disadvantage of
maMng the soldier a settler. The Persian war was therefore broken
off in 233 without the conclusion of peace. Before his return to
Rome the Emperor took measures for the defence of the frontier
in the East. At Rome he was received with the honours of a
1 See Volume of Plates v, 230, m.
® C£ Ritterling, P.W. f.v. Legio, cols. 1331, 1528.
THE FALL OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS
II, II]
yi
conqueror and celebrated a triumph as ‘Parthicus Maximus’ or
as ‘Persicus Maximus^.’
The return of the European contingents seemed to have re-
moved the worst danger on the Rhine and on the Danube; but an
ambitious campaign was prepared against the Alemanni. On this
occasion Pannonia furnished most of the recruits, who were
collected on the Upper Rhine in 234. Their training was entrusted
to C. Julius Verus Maximinus. The Rhine army was strengthened
by detachments from other legions; besides the II Parthica
from Italy, special contingents of light-armed auxiliaries were
dispatched; these had returned from the East with Severus
Alexander. In the same year the Emperor, again accompanied by
his mother, proceeded to join his army, which was concentrated at
Mainz. The passage over the Rhine had already been secured by
a pontoon bridge^. But instead of giving battle Alexander, still
swayed by the Augusta, began to negotiate. He hoped to maintain
peace by cash-payments. But in this policy he failed to take into
account the fighting spirit of his troops, who misconstrued his
conduct as cowardice and who also perhaps thought that the
Roman money would be better expended on themselves. Dislike
for Mamaea with her supposed avarice, and antipathy towards
an emperor who could never show a will of his own, led to a revolt.
The Pannonian recruits proclaimed their commander Maximinus
as emperor. In vain did Severus Alexander hope for the support
of the other troops, especially those from the East. When Maxi-
minus advanced against him he found himself deserted, and in
mid-March 235 he was killed in Vicus Britannicus (Bretzenheim
near Mainz). His mother shared the same fate.
They both fell victims to those forces in which the founder of
the dynasty had seen the surest defence of his house, and they
paid with their lives for the failure of their attempt to reach the
goal of the first Severus by other means than his. The plan of
serving the interests of the Empire and of the dynasty by winning
the support of the upper classes for a regime based on military
supremacy was bound to fail if it did not succeed in mastering the
unruliness of the armies. But as soon as the danger from without
the empire had strengthened the self-consciousness of the soldiery-
through the feeling that they were indispensable, as soon as they
had begun to desire a soldier for their emperor, there was no hope
left. For precisely those qualities which this hour demanded were
just those which Severus Alexander lacked, however well-meaning
1 Jard^, i>/>. cit. p. 82. . ® See Volume of Plates v, /, . ;
72 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
and sensible of his imperial duties he may have been. The last of
these Syrian emperors could not fulfil his rdle, since he was neither
a Severus nor an Alexander.
III. THE FIRST SOLDIER-EMPEROR AND THE
SENATORIAL OPPOSITION: MAXIMINUS THRAX,
THE GORDIANS, PUPIENUS AND BALBINUS
Maximinus- was the first representative of a new type of ruler.
The son of a Thracian peasant — only a falsification of history has
made him a Goth— a man who attracted attention by his extra-
ordinary strength and size, he had risen from the ranks, and when
admitted into the equestrian order he had made a career for him-
self. As legionary prefect he commanded the legio II Traiana in
Egypt in and at the time of the Persian war he was governor
of Mesopotamia (jtraejectus Mesopotamiae). His soldierly qualities
and his skill in handling troops were the reasons for entrusting
the training of the recruits to him in 2 34 as praefectus tironibus.
He was a man after the soldiers’ heart : he shared their sentiments ;
he knew what they wanted. It is no wonder that shortly after his
elevation he doubled their pay.
The news from the Rhine soon reached Rome. We know nothing
of the manner in which Maximinus obtained his recognition from
the Senate; but the patres, thus surprised, could do nothing else
than bow to the inevitable and confirm him as emperor. Proof of
this is found in the co-option of Maximinus into the priestly
colleges on 25 March 235. In any case the Senate, in order to
maintain its position, had taken the customary constitutional steps^.
The patres, it is true, may have given vent later to their rancour and
their aversion to the hated upstart by denying the ratification by
the Senate, thus preparing the way for the conception of an
immediate open opposition of that body, which even is supposed
to have raised Alexander to the gods. But the erased inscriptions
tell another story. Not until the period of overt rebellion against
Maximinus was the Senate able to act as it may well have desired
to act at the time — for there was resentment right from the
beginning. This and the fact that Maximinus, occupied with the
^ Accepting the very probable supplement in P. Par. 69 by U. Wilckcn,
PhU. LIU, 1894, p, 95 = Chrestomaihie 1, no. 41, col. in, 14.
® It is useless to speak of the nullity of an enforced legal transaction
by pointing to paragraphs of modern criminal law, as is done by O. T.
Schulz, F im Prinzipat zum Dominat, p. 54 sq.
II, in] MAXIMINUS THRAX 73
urgent tasks on the frontier, did not visit Rome either at this time
or later were bound to prejudice his popularity, even though he
made the expected gesture to the inhabitants of the capital by
granting them a donative on taking over the government.
The prosecution of the war against the Germans appeared to
Maximinus to be his first and most important task, but before he
joined battle he had to deal with opposition in his own army.
A number, of centurions and senatorial officers had planned his
removal. It was their intention to deliver the Emperor into the
enemy’s hands by breaking down the bridge after he had crossed
to the right bank of the Rhine. A distinguished senator named
Magnus was to take his place. The plot became known, and
Maximinus had the real or suspected culprits put to death without
trial. ThehistorianHerodian^jWhois biassed against this emperor,
attempts, without good reason, to make his readers believe that
the plot existed only in the imagination of Maximinus. He does,
however, mention other men who could not reconcile themselves
to the fait accompli. The Osrhoenian archers forced the purple
on Quartinus, a man of senatorial rank and a friend of the murdered
Augustus. This movement must have been prompted by the
jealousy of the Oriental troops towards those of the West. But
Quartinus had hardly been raised to this dignity when he fell by
the hand of Macedo, the former commander of the Osrhoenians,
who had himself provoked the mutiny. His double game brought
him the punishment of death instead of the reward he expected.
But it is no wonder that the Emperor’s suspicions could never
afterwards be allayed. By nature rather brusque and in no way
sympathetic towards the senators, who prided themselves on their
rank and education, Maximinus used these revolts as an excuse
for removing the senatorial officers and replacing them by pro-
fessional soldiers. But this was still in the future. For the
OsrhoSnians took part in the fighting against the Germans, and
it was only after this that they were punished^. It is hardly to be
assumed that Maximinus should have given this heavily com-
promised contingent an opportunity of rehabilitating themselves
only to disband them after their victories.
The Emperor crossed the Rhine near Mainz and led his army
far into the enemy’s country, following an opponent who retreated
before his superior forces. The light troops, the Oriental archers
and the Mauretanian javelinmen, proved their skill in skirmishes
with the Germans, to whom their tactics were unfamiliar. It was
not until they reached marshy country that the enemy took ;their
1 vn, I, 8. ® A. v. Domaszewsla, Mm. nviii, J903, f>. 543*
74 the senate and THE ARMY [chap.
stand for a decisive battle. Tbe braverf of Maximinus fired his
troops to attack, notwithstanding the difficulties of the ground.
Despite heavy losses they inflicted a crushing defeat on the
Germans. The field of battle must be sought in the frontier district
of Northern Wiirttemberg and Baden, and thus we may conclude
that the enemy were Alemanni^. With justifiable pride the Em-
peror could accept the triumphal title of Germanicus Maximus
and commemorate the ‘Victoria Germanica’ on the coinage of the
following year. A picture of the battle which was publicly dis-
played before the Curia in Rome spread the fame of the victorious
emperor. This energetic advance re-established peace for some
time along the Rhine and Upper Danube. Additions to the limes
forts show the strong interest taken in the maintenance of the
frontier defences. Maximinus could consider this victory over the
Germans as confirming his title to the throne; accordingly he now
(in 235) raised his son C. Julius Verus Maximus to the rank of
Caesar®, the ceremony possibly forming part of the festival of
victory held at Sirmium, where he had taken up his winter
quarters. If he had in fact projected anew attack upon the Germans
for 236 and planned conquests on a large scale, such schemes had
perforce to be abandoned, for the Sarmatians and Dacians gave
him trouble. The triumphal titles Sarmaticus and Dacicus
Maximus and tombstones of soldiers who fell in the Dacian
campaign are the only evidence of these struggles in the years
236 and 237. In the spring of 238 we find the Emperor again
in Sirmium.
The subject peoples of the empire soon came to feel that a
keener wind was blowing. It is true that the practical recognition
of the right of the Praetorian Prefect to make general decrees,
provided only that these did not modify the existing legislation®,
was implicit in the previous development. Further there are
inscriptions which give evidence of expenditure on public works,
one of which expressly praises the Emperor as ‘Aquileiensium
restitutor et conditor,’ while road-building* especially was con-
tinued with undiminished energy. Yet the increasing claims of
military requirements were ever more markedly felt. Moreover,
* P. Goessler, ‘Eine Alamannenschlacht des Jahres 236 («f) n. Chr.’
Forsch. u, Fortschr. vir, 1931, p. 109; id. Germania xv, 1931, p. 8.
® C. Bosch, Die kleinasiatischen Munzen, n, 1, i, p. 53.
® Ceei, Jtfst. i, 26, 2 of 1 3 Aug. 235, which is erroneously ascribed to
Severus Alexander.
* Cf. G. M. Ber^netti, ‘Ma^’mino il Trace e k reta stradale dell’ impero,’
Atti 111 Cmgresso £ Studi Romani, i, 1934, p, 590,
II, III] A SOLDIER EMPEROR; PERSECUTION 75
through the Emperor’s distrust of a covert opposition, the fol-
lowers of the last dynasty were continually exposed to threats and
police spying. Herodian^ recounts all the evil consequences of
the wide-spread activity of informers, including confiscations,
which reduced many rich families to beggary, and an organized
Terror maintained by the barbarian tyrant, whose persecution of
the upper classes is notably exemplified in his cruel treatment of
high senatorial officials. The wife of the Emperor, Caecilia
Paulina, tried to exercise a restraining influence upon him. But
she must soon have died. She was consecrated Diva, so that the
later Christian tradition that Maximinus had his wife executed
can therefore be explained only through the hatred felt by the
Christians for an emperor who, after a period of quiet, had
initiated a fresh persecution.
This new persecution of the Church began soon after the
Emperor’s accession ; it sprang, according to Eusebius % in the main
from political considerations ; it was a reaction against the regime
of the last emperor, who had been friendly to the Christians,
Maximinus feared hostility on the part of the Christians, and, to
prevent possible difficulties, began at once to enforce against them
the existing regulations, but only to the extent of ordering that, in
special cases, proceedings should be taken against the clergy.
This was a measure of domestic security, and not a systematic
persecution for religio-political reasons, as happened later under
Decius. In 235 Pontianus, bishop of Rome, and with him Hippo-
lytus, were deported to Sardinia; and Origen’s Exhortation to
martyrdom^ addressed to Ambrosius and Protoctetus, in which he
contemplates a threat to his own safety, further shows the effect
of the imperial edict in Palestinian Caesarea. In the cases of
Hippolytus and of Origen we may, in view of their relations
with Mamaea, see action against or at least a threatening of
men politically suspect. On the other hand, in Cappadocia
and Pontus a purely local persecution of Christians broke out
which had no connection with the imperial instructions of 235.
Here it was the governor Serenianus who intervened at the
instance of the pagan population, the atheistic Christians being
held responsible for the devastating results of an earthquake.
We may, however, note the perspicacity of the Emperor in
appreciating the importance of the clergy in the structure of the
Christian communities and thus of the Church as a whole. It
appears that the threatening danger passed quickly and harmlessly
by. Political caution on the part of the Christians must have
1 vii, 3. ^ Mist. Eccit vi, ao.y: i ; ‘
76 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
contributed to this outcome. For this reason Maximinus does not
figure in the list of persecutors given by Lactantius, though he
does appear in the tradition of Eusebius and probably also in the
Apocalypse of the so-called Testament of our LorcP-^ where he is
described, in traits which we also find in Herodian, as an emperor
from a foreign people, a murderer of men and a grasper after gold.
Ancient critics constantly harp on the avarice of Maximinus.
He is said to have confiscated even the public moneys of the
municipalities, endowments of all kinds, votive-offerings from the
temples and the ornaments of public places in so far as these last
were made of mintable metals. It is possible that this generaliza-
tion is exaggerated and that the critics wilfully overlooked the fact
that the defence of the empire required a large part of the means
thus provided; nevertheless the statement is a faithful echo of the
feeling of those who in all this wished to see only a means to the
end of enriching the soldiers at the expense of all the other subjects
of the empire. Whether the soldiers really became dissatisfied with
these proceedings, as Herodian asserts^, under the influence of
reproaches which are said to have been made to them by their
relatives and friends, it is difficult to decide. But at least the action
of the Emperor cannot be explained as the result of the hatred of
the townsfolk felt by a peasant soldier, since in the last resort the
peasants certainly suffered no less than others under the harsh
pressure of the taxes. We may, however, conclude from the
analogy of other experience that me severe screwing up of taxation
not only made the propertied classes nervous but very seriously
damaged the public spirit that had expressed itself in voluntary
services, the more as the State exchequer now and later became
increasingly like the sieve of the Danaids. It was therefore this
unconscionable financial policy, the result of the pressure of
circumstances, which gave the signal for a new rising.
The imperial procurator iii Africa, under the compulsion of the
government, proceeded in the collection of taxes without mercy
or regard for justice. This drove a number of rich young nobles,
who saw their inherited possessions thus endangered, into armed
resistance. They mobilized their tenants and servants, and killed
the procurator in Thysdrus (the modern El Djem). This done,
the only means of securing themselves was to proclaim a rival
emperor. The proconsul M. Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus
^ K. J. Neumann, Hippolytus van Rom, p. 138; but cf. E. Fascher, P.W.
s.v. Testamentum dom. nost. col. lOlQ.
2 VII, 3, 6.
II, m] FINANCIAL STRESS: THE GORDIANI 77
permitted himself to be forced to accept the purple. On or about
19 March 238 this eighty-year-old proconsul became Augustus.
He was said to be descended on his father’s side from the Gracchi
and on his mother’s side from Trajan. He was a rich landed
proprietor, interested in literature— he had studied with Philo-
stratus — but had become consul suffectus only late in life and had
not taken a prominent part in politics. Maximinus had therefore
left him in the position which he had occupied under Severus
Alexander. He was a personality whose qualities would recom-
mend him as a rival to a hated emperor, and he was ambitious
enough to feel flattered at the thought of ending his days in the
imperial dignity. After a few days the new Augustus made his
entry into Carthage together with his son of the same name, whom
he had appointed co-emperor. An embassy, headed by the
quaestor, now left for Rome with a proclamation to the Senate and
the People, while Gordian I appealed in private letters to his
fellow nobles. Vitalianus, the commander of the Guard, as a
supporter of Maximinus, must first be removed. The envoys
obtained an introduction to him by a ruse, alleging that they
had been sent by Maximinus on a secret mission, and killed him.
The programme of the new government could now be pub-
lished. It promised to stop the informers’ activities, to make
losses good and to recall the exiles. The Senate went over to the
Gordians’ party and confirmed their imperial titles (2 April).
They voted the damnatio memoriae of Maximinus, and perhaps at
the same time consecrated Severus Alexander^. The Roman
populace gave vent to its feelings in wild excesses : the images of
Maximinus were destroyed, his followers hunted out and killed.
The City Prefect Sabinus also fell a victim to the popular anger.
Meanwhile the Senate had acted with extraordinary energy.
A committee of twenty consulars — ‘vigintiviri rei publicae
curandae ’ — was constituted and charged with securing the defence
of Italy against the expected attack of the deposed emperor. Then
an appeal was made to the provinces, calling upon them to make
common cause with the Senate’s emperors, each of whom received,
in addition to the title Africanus, the other significant name of
Romanus. However, the Roman mint had no time to take up these
new titles on the coinage, for the fall of the dice had already gone
against the Gordians. Capellianus, the governor of Numidia,
remained faithful to Maximinus. Fighting against his well-armed
^ He is designated Divus for the firsi time in an undated decree of
Gordian III ifiod. Just, ix* 51, 6), Cf. Dessau 9221. ' i i v.-- it
78 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
troops, the legio III Augusta and its auxiliaries, Gordian II fell
at the head of his poorly armed militia. His father thereupon
committed suicide, and their African followers were visited with
terrible punishment. But with this episode, which had ended in
a trial of strength decided in favour of the army, the game was by
no means over.
With the recognition of the Gordians the Senate had once more
assumed a political r6le, and it could not now retreat. The senators
assembled in solemn session in the temple of Juppiter on the
Capitol. .None could or wished to think of a restoration of a
Republican rdgime. But an attempt was made to set up a princi-
pate in conformity with the revived prestige of the Senate. Thus
the two most highly respected members of the Committee of
Twenty, M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus and D. Caelius Calvinus
Balbinus, were elected to the imperial dignity, Pupienus had
climbed the ladder of office from humble beginnings, and had
made a reputation as an efficient officer and provincial governor.
He had twice been consul suffectus, and as City Prefect he had
displayed both prudence and firmness. It was the irony of
fate that the Senate, to defend itself against the soldier-emperor,
should have required the services of a man at whose birth also
there had been no dream of his elevation to the imperial throne.
Balbinus was of noble birth: he was quite young when he became
a member of the Salian priesthood of the Palatine. He too had
been twice consul, and in 213 Was even consul ordinarius. This
double election of two emperors was a new departure constitu-
tionally. In their complete equality of rights — so that on each of
them was bestowed for the first time even the hitherto indivisible
dignity of Pontifex Maximus (vol. xi, p. 415) — we see, not so
much an indication that the Senate considered the double princi-
pate as the general rule^, but rather a memory of the duality and
equality in power of the highest magistracy of the Republic. The
close relation of the new Augusti to the Senate can be seen in the
legend on the coins ‘patres senatus’ — though this, it must be
admitted, was not its first appearance — and still more in the
retention of the Committee of Twenty®. But the proceedings of
the Senate met with no undivided approval. The election of
Pupienus, who since his City Prefecture was anything but liked
by the populace, was answered with rioting. And followers of the
Gordiaiis, relying on the dynastic tradition, demanded and forced
the elevation to the Caesarship of M. Antonius Gordianus, a
^ For another view see E. Kornemann, Doppelprinzipai und Rekks-
tdlung im Imperittm Rommum, p. 96. ® Dessau 8979.
II, III] THE SENATE. PUPIENUS AND BALBINUS 79
grandson of Gordian I by the marriage between his daughter
Maecia Faustina and Junius Balbus. Both the Gordians were now
consecrated. A donative oi 1^0 denarii per head contributed to
the further appeasement of the people’s temper. Pupienus set
about gathering an army in North Italy, while Balbinus stayed
in Rome. But it is an error to see in this an endeavour to separate
civil and military power even as between the two emperors.
Maximinus had received the news of the African rising while
he was at Sirmium. After two days’ consultation with his intimates
he addressed the army in a speech which had been prepared for
him. He described the impotence and the military weakness of
his opponents and uttered violent threats against Rome and the
Senate. A generous donative did not fail of its effect. The fol-
lowing day the whole army began its march, in its ranks being
many Germans, for the most part cavalry, with which the tribes
on the right bank of the Rhine had furnished him either voluntarily
or under compulsion. The unforeseen departure and the huge
baggage-train were hindrances to his progress. On the fall of the
Gordians, the situation remained unaltered, but that fall at least
disclosed the fact that the appeal made % the Senate to the
provinces had not met everywhere with approval. Thus, besides
the provinces whose defence he had secured, Dacia and Spain and,
according to the inscriptions on coins, Asia Minor also, stood
firmly by Maximinus. The Pannonian regiments, which formed
•the advance guard, found Emona evacuated. All supplies had
been carried away or destroyed in accordance with orders. This
action on the part of the enemy, which was repeated as the army
progressed, led to a shortage of food with its unfavourable con-
sequences. Aquileia was the first town to offer resistance, which
had been organized, on the instructions of the Senate, by the
consulars Crispinus^ and Menophilus. An attack by the advanced
guard was repelled. Negotiations, which were conducted by
Maximinus through a tribune who was a native of the town, came
to nothing. The Emperor then ordered a general attack, which
was, however, delayed because floods from the melting snows had
destroyed the bridge over the Isonzo. Not until a pontoon bridge
had been improvised from casks was it possible on the third day
to force the passage. In spite of the energy of Maximinus, all
efforts were in vain. The defenders maintained a stubborn
resistance, inspired by their confidence in their local patron deity,
1 Cf. R. ParibeiUi Not. .1928, p. 343; A. Stein, ‘Beiluni,
Aquileiense,’ txv, 1930, pp* 228 . iv, . . ..
8o THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
Belenus. Increasing losses, the threat of hunger, and resentnaent
at the Emperor’s unjustified severity towards some officers, whom
he accused of failing in their duty, undermined the discipline of
the besiegers. The fate of the undertaking was finally decided by
the soldiers of the second Parthian legion, whose families and
goods in Alba were held by their opponents. On lo May they
murdered Maximinus and his son. But the besieged did not as
yet open the gates to them, although the army had rendered
homage to images of the senatorial emperors which were shown
to them from the city-wall. Only a market outside the wall was
granted to the half-starved troops.
Mounted envoys from the army, now tired of war, bearing the
heads of the slain emperors as their bloody credentials, met
Pupienus in Ravenna, where he was concentrating the volunteers
and the levies from Rome and Italy. He hastened to Aquileia,
where the leaderless army did him homage. After offering sacrifice
in thanksgiving for this victory Pupienus addressed the troops,
stressing their obligation of faithfulness to the Senate and People
of Rome and to the emperors elected by them. He then dismissed
the troops to their permanent stations. At the head of the Roman
garrison troops and the Germans, whom he had taken into his
service in reliance on their loyal spirit, which he knew from the
time of his German command^, Pupienus returned to Rome.
Everywhere he was greeted with enthusiasm as victor. In Rome
the news of Maximinus’ death had been hailed with frenzied joy.
Amid general jubilation Pupienus entered the capital in state
accompanied by his co-Augustus and the Caesar. The power of
the senatorial emperors — and therewith a new phase in the consti-
tution of the Empire — appeared secure. Men forgot and wished
to forget that a short while before a bitter struggle had been raging
in Rome. The Praetorians who had remained there, provoked by
the conduct of two senators, had waged a savage battle against the
populace, which had attacked them; during this, before calm
was restored, large districts of the City had gone up in flames. The
government was undoubtedly at fault in not at once clearing up
its attitude towards the Praetorians, all the more so since the
excessive exultation over the fall of Maximinus and the preferment
of the German life-guards did not allow the disaffection to be
healed. Soon the legends on the coins which declared the wishes
of the government, such as ‘Concordia,’ ‘amor mutuus,’ ‘fides
mutua Augustorum,’ were powerless to conceal the fact that
^ Cf. Ritterling, P.W, s.v. Le^o, c»l. 1335; and, for another view,
M. Bang, Die Germmen im rSmischm Dienst, p. 61.
II, IV] THE DEATH OF MAXIMINUS AND HIS RIVALS 8i
jealousies were rife. Pupienus stressed his peculiar merits by using
the name Maximus on a series of coins^. Balbinus repaid the
upstart with a haughty demeanour. The common task of defending
the empire against external foes might perhaps have brought about
a change. Pupienus was to have proceeded against the Persians,
who had again broken into Mesopotamia, and Balbinus against
the Goths, who had crossed the lower Danube. But the Prae-
torians had decided otherwise. During a festival they seized
Pupienus, who had in vain asked the mistrustful Balbinus to
intervene with the Germans, and then they captured Balbinus.
Both were brought amid ignominy and mockery into the Praetorian
camp, and there were murdered. Then at last the Germans showed
a desire to hurry to their assistance, but on receiving the news of
the two emperors’ deaths they took no action. The rebels pro-
claimed the Caesar Gordianus as Augustus. By this proclamation
(July 9) the hopes of the Senate were, after ninety-nine days,
shattered by the self-will of the soldiers. Once more it could only
submit to the compulsion of force, though its disappointment may
have been lessened by the fact that the young Augustus came from
one of the most distinguished senatorial families.
IV. GORDIAN III
Gordian III became Augustus at the age of thirteen^. This was
a grave reaction against the attempt to entrust the Empire to the
best citizen. Who conducted the business of State for the dependent
emperor? Whereas from the year 24 1 we can recognize in
the Praetorian Prefect Timesitheus the real controller of the
Empire we can draw no sure conclusion for the first few years.
Gordian’s father must have died before 238, and even the influence
of his mother Maecia Faustina is mentioned only in highly suspect
passages of the Historia Augusta\ the epigraphical and numis-
matic evidence which we should expect for an influential empress-
mother is entirely lacking. However, the efforts of members of
his mother’s household to use the situation for their own advance-
ment may have given a handle for the malicious tradition of an
administration run by eunuchs and court-favourites in these early
years. The assured facts rather point to a continuance of senatorial
influence. Thus, for instance, L. Caesonius Lucillus Macer
Rufinianus, proconsul of Africa and later City-Prefect, and Meno-
philus, governor of Lower Moesia, were both previously members
^ See Volume of Plates v, 232^ My t* v ^ ^ For his portrait 186, r.
XII ^
82 , THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
of the Committee of Twenty. A certain Annianus, who under the
senatorial r%ime had been charged with holding the levy in North
Italy, was later made commander of the legion stationed at Mainz,
the XXII Primigenia. The Praetorian Prefecture was held by
Aedinius Julianus, a man of equestrian rank who had previously
risen to be prefect of Egypt, and then, after admission to the
Senate, had become governor of Lugdunensis. Domitius is
mentioned as holding this olBce in 240 either with Julianus or
after him. Further, it is certain that after 241 two Praetorian
Prefects still held office together^. The advisers of the Emperor
were apparently desirous of shaping the imperial administration,
if not in the spirit of the last reign, at least in continuation of the
regime of Severus Alexander.
Many decrees published in the first years of the reign, although
they deal for the most part with questions of civil law, permit us
to perceive certain general directions of policy which were retained
even after 24 1 . The nefarious activities of the delatores were com-
bated according to the promise of Gordian I. A decree published
6 September 238 orders the provincial governors to see that
nothing should happen which is not in accordance with the prin-
ciples of the age^. In the administration of the provinces the
position of the governor was reinforced, especially in its judicial
authority. Unjustified decisions of military judges in civil matters
were forbidden®, and efforts were made to restrict the encroach-
ments of the financial procurators in cases where they had not to
administer the law as deputies of the governors (vice praesidis),
a practice which became in course of time more frequent. Only
when they were so deputed could they in private lawsuits appoint
the judges or hear cases reserved for the governor^. One may
recognize a certain strengthening of the central administration
conducted by the Praetorian Prefect in the right of appeal to the
Prefect against a decision of the governor®, or in the fact that an
official who did not fulfil his duties was to be dealt with either by
the Prefect or by the governor®. In fiscal matters the rights of the
Jiscus and its administration were often emphasized, but there
were also proceedings against breaches of the law, and particularly
^ Dessau 2159; Cod. Just, ix, 2, 6 (April 243).
® Cod. Just. X, II, 2; c£ P. W. Townsend, Tale Class. Stud, iv, 1934,
p. 65 s^.
® Cod. Just, vri, 48, 2.
J Cod. just. HI, 3, 1 5 IX, 20, 4; cf. Townsend, op. cit. pp. 66 sqq. and on
this W. Ensdin, Phil. Woch. lvi, 1936, col. 1314.
® Cod. Just. IX, 2, 6. Cod. Just, nu, 40, 13.
II, IV] THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF POLICY 83
precautions against straining the law in favour of those who were
in the employ of the Stated. Among other things steps were taken
against attempts to obtain the support of the fiscus by the cession
to it of part of any property in dispute^. A significant case of
governmental intervention has been preserved in the inscription
of Scaptopare®, commemorating a petition of the inhabitants of
f this and another village in the territory of Pautalia in Thrace.
Their complaints were directed against the oppression and extor-
tion of soldiers, minor imperial functionaries and others. The
local hot springs and the proximity of a much-frequented market
had previously in times of peace brought a good income to the
villagers. Conditions were now entirely changed; they were so
t impoverished by excessive billeting and requisitions that they
threatened to leave their homes. The Emperor ordered an examina-
tion of the case, and the erection of the inscription proves that the
villagers of Scaptopare were satisfied with the success of their
appeal. Also the repeated reminders of the prohibition against
I money-lending by imperial officials, either in their own names or
through men of straw, point again to the beneficent aims of the
f government^. Under Severus Alexander the right of inflicting
punishments had been withdrawn from the financial procurators,
and now it was also taken from the supervisors of municipal
administration called curatores reipublicae^. To lighten the burdens
, of town-councillors a period of respite was decreed between the
taking over of the separate offices and duties®. At the same time
it is clear that the honour of belonging to the municipal council
f (prdo) was accompanied by a certain compulsion: for men who
I were condemned to exile for a period were to be ordered on their
j return to resume membership of the ordo, and were to be excluded
! from its honours only for as many years as their exile had lastedL
i In other respects, too, the government was little disposed to free
men from services and duties. For instance, of the freedmen in
^ the service of a senatorial palronus only one was released from the
' obligation of taking over the duties of guardian and tutor®. Care
I for public education is shown in the decree allowing the muni-
cipalities to dismiss the grammatici and rhetors appointed by them,
I if they were proved incompetent®.
I
^ Cod, Just, n, 5O5 4 and 5. ^ Ib. ii, 17, 2.
® Ditt.^ 8885 c£ M. RostovtzelF, Social and Economic History^ pp. 427,
559 n. 89, 621 n. 18 j German ed. ii, pp. 186, 363 n. 18, 365 n. 27,
^ Cod, Just. lY, 2, 3. ^ lb. I, 54, 3.
; z, 41, 2. . Ik x, 61^ 2.
® Ik 62, 135 cf. X, 46, I, ® Ik X, 53, 2,
r , •
84 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
The populace of Rome were amply supplied with donatives and
games. There was however a decline in building activity; for we
are informed only of the reconstruction of the Balneum Surae and
the enlargement of the barracks of the marines who had been
detached for service in the amphitheatre. It may be, however, that
the government co-operated in the removal of the damages caused
by the street-fighting. The finances of the Empire must have been
subjected to heavy strain, and the government was compelled to
reduce the State grants made to the priests ; at least, the last entry
of payment preserved in the Arval Acta of 241 shows that the usual
sportula of 100 denarii had been reduced to 25^.
The soldiers received the customary donatives. Also numerous
decrees show that, as under Severus Alexander, efforts were made
to secure their legal position, especially under the law of inheritance.
One gains the impression that, in spite of the attempt to maintain
discipline, a far-reaching and prudent compromise was practised
as before. It is true that as early as 238 Gordian had disbanded the
legio III Augusta for its share in the overthrow of the first two
Gordians. Its officers and soldiers, apart from those who were
more heavily punished, were transferred to other corps — a con-
siderable number of them are found fifteen years later in the
formations concentrated in Raetia— and it was intended that their
place should be supplied by a regrouping of African auxilia^. But
this action proved a source of weakness: for when Sabinianus’
rebellion broke out in Carthage in 240 the governor of Maure-
tania, probably Faltonius Restitutianus®, had to be called up with
his troops. The usurper’s attempt soon failed. It is possible,
however, that on this occasion detachments from the Rhine
frontier were sent to Mauretania for additional security^.
On the Rhine there was still peace resulting from the German
victory of Maximinus. But the departure of his army had once
more set in motion the enemy on the Danube. Attacks by the
Goths and their neighbours, the Dacian Carpi, probed the weakness
of the defence. In 238 Istros was pillaged. The peril was not
averted until Menophilus, as governor of Lower Moesia, had
intervened with a large army. Negotiations with the Goths and
^ Cf. G. Wissowa, P.W. r.-y. Arvales fratres, col. 1467; id. Religion und
Kuhus der Romer, igi2, pp. 93, 500 n. 2.
® Cf. the '‘noexillatio miiitum Maurarum Caesariensium Gordianorund in
C.l.L. VIII, 2716} R. Cagnat, Uarmee romaine AAfrique, p. 207.
® Cf. A. Stein, P.W. j.y. Faltonius, col. 1976.
* So with Cagnat, op. cit. 222 saq.\ for another view see Ritterling, P.W.
Legio, col. ^336.
11 , IV] FRONTIER DEFENCE 85
the grant of annual payments induced them to withdraw, first
handing over their prisoners^. A similar demand by the Carpi
was put ofiF until Menophilus, supported by a reinforced and well-
drilled army, was able to decline it. For three years the enemy
remained quiet, while the defence was strengthened by the building
of roads and the erection of new fortifications in the towns. U pper
Moesia received the right of coinage in order to supply the new
requirements. According to the coins minted at Viminacium they
now reckoned there by a provincial calendar which began on
X July 2392.
The revolts in Africa and the increasing burden of military
problems, which was especially due to the renewed danger upon
the eastern frontier, may have created the desire to have in charge
of the central administration a man who was equal to these demands .
We do not know who brought Timesitheus to the Emperor’s
notice. In 241 Gordian appointed him Praetorian Prefect and
himself married Furia Sabinia Tranquillina, the daughter of
Timesitheus, perhaps as early as May, but certainly before
23 September®. C. Furius Sabinus Aquila Timesitheus, whose
name is transformed in Greek sources to Timesikles or Timesokles,
and in the Historia Augusta is contracted, perhaps in derision, to
Misitheus, had acquainted himself by personal experience with a
great part of the empire. An inscription from Lyons* gives us his
career. He served in Spain as prefect of an auxiliary cohort. As
financial procurator in the administration of the imperial treasury
and domains he served in the provinces of Belgica and Arabia,
where he was twice deputy governor. He then came to Rome and
there held the ofiice of manager of the imperial stage (Jogista
thymelae) and later that of chief of the Inheritance Tax Ofiice. He
next went as procurator to Syria and Palestine, charged with the
collection of the outstanding special taxes arising out of the Persian
war of Severus Alexander. Returning to Belgica as deputy of the
procurator patrimonii he became at the same time vice-governor in
Lower Germany. Then followed a procuratorship with increased
powers in Bithynia, Pontus and Paphlagonia, a similar post in
Asia as deputy governor for the proconsul, and finally the pro-
curatorship of Lugdunensis and Aquitania. A man who, without
^ Cf. L. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen StSmme, i®, Die Ostgermanen,
p. 204.
® G. Elmer, TAum. Z., N,F. xxvin, 1935, p. 36.
® Bosch, op. cit. p. 56; cf. A. R. Bellinger, Tale Class. Stud, v, 1935,
p. 147 n. 29. ' , ■ , ' ' , , , .
■ * C. J. A XIII, 1807 j Dessau .-I 330 - ’’V-" '
86 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
prejudice to his career, had weathered the storms of repeated
changes of emperor was certainly a capable administrator, con-
cerned with affairs and not with persons. His ambition, which
cannot be denied, was satisfied with the position of Praetorian
Prefect. For some three years this man of outstanding culture
and eloquence was the real controller of the Empire, a faithful
servant of the State and an expert adviser of his imperial son-in-law.
An apocryphal inscription to his honour in the Historia Augusta
lauds Timesitheus as Father of the Emperor and Protector of the
Empire, thus truly rendering the real significance of his person
and his position.
How much of the manifold efforts in road-building to serve the
peaceful, and in time of need, the military communications of the
empire, can be attributed to Timesitheus, is uncertain; but the
least that can be said is that he continued what others had begun.
In Africa the construction of a limes gave security to Numidia^.
The advanced post of Msad was withdrawn, and the course of the
limes was fixed on the line from Thabudis following the Oued
Djedi, then bending in a north-westerly direction to El Gehara,
with covering forts at Gemellae in the oasis Ducen and Ausum
(Sadouri). The reinforced numerus Palmyrenorum here guarded
the frontier. In Mauretania the completion of the fortified settle-
ments of frontier peasants and military settlers, begun under
Severus Alexander, was pushed on under the governor, Faltonius
Restitutianus, especially supervised by Felix, the procurator
of the imperial domains^. But the main military efforts were
concentrated on the campaign against the Persians, which the
Emperor inaugurated in the spring of 242 by the solemn opening
of the temple of Janus, the last observance of this ceremony.
While Maximinus still reigned, Ardashir had captured Nisibis
and Carrhae. Shapur I, the son who succeeded him in 241,
pursued his father’s plans of conquest (p. 130). A renewed
thrust into Syria seriously endangered Antioch on the Orontes.
Meanwhile Gordian, accompanied by Timesitheus, had joined
the army, which on its passage overland to the East was to
gather up the mobilized contingents of the Danubian army. The
removal of these troops, and also, perhaps, the previous recall
of Menophilus, tempted the enemy to the attack. Bands of
1 Cf. E. Fabricius, P.W. s,v. Limes, col. 667; J. Carcopino, ‘Le Limes
de Numidie et sa garde Syrienne’, Syria, vi, 1925, pp. 30-57, 118-49;
Townsend, op. cit. iv, 1934, pp. tcxjsqq.
® C£ Carcopino, ‘Les Castella de la plaine de Setif’, Rev. Africaine, ux,
1918, pp. 5 sqq.‘, Townsend, sp. cit. p. 1 13 ry.
II, V] THE WORK OF TIMESITHEUS 87
raiders, especially of the Carpi, pushed forward as far as Thrace.
But the intervention of Timesitheus soon re-established peace.
After this success the army was transported from Thrace to Asia.
In 243 Timesitheus, who had also shown his mettle as organizer
of the campaign, through his skilful leadership — one blow fol-
lowing rapidly upon another — succeeded in freeing Syria from
the Persians and in retaking Carrhae. A decisive battle near
Resaina secured to the victorious Romans the whole of Meso-
potamia with Singara, and even Nisibis became theirs once more.
Edessa in Osrhoene, where previously under king Abgar X an
Osrhoenian client State had been once more set up^, became again
a Roman colony. A further advance was contemplated, leading
along the Chaboras to the Euphrates and then following the latter
river towards Ctesiphon. Suddenly Timesitheus was cut off by
illness. His successor was the forty-five year old M. Julius
Philippus, the son of an Arab sheikh from Trachonitis named
Marinus. The career of his brother C. Julius Priscus does not
correspond with the tradition of his lowly origin. Philip had
probably already risen to the position of deputy Prefect. His
burning ambition did not allow him to rest content with the place
of most influential subject; he wished to wear the purple himself.
Disaffection was aroused among the soldiers by difficulties pur-
posely created in the commissariat, the fault of which was attri-
buted to the Emperor’s incapacity. If Gordian really did attempt
to compound for the position of co-emperor, or at least for the
Caesarship, he had not realized the true character of the Arab. In
the neighbourhood of Zaitha, between Circesium and Doura-
Europus, Gordian’s fate was sealed: he was murdered by the
soldiers. Philip became emperor (end of February or beginning
of March 244). As late as the Persian campaign of the Emperor
Julian the cenotaph of Gordian III still stood near Zaitha, at
once the record of the successes gained under his name and a
memorial which showed what forces were in fact at that time
determining the Empire’s fate.
V. PHILIP THE ARABIAN
Once proclaimed Augustus, Philip endeavoured to obtain
as soon as possible his recognition by the Senate. To this body he
reported that Gordian had succumbed to an illness, and succeeded,
through his subsequent conduct, in getting this official version
accepted by the public, since he steadfastly paid the utmost respect
^ Cf. Bellinger, «/, pp. 142 . ' - . ; .
88
THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
to the memory of his predecessor, to whom the Senate was com-
pelled to render the supreme honour of consecration among the
Divi. The mortal remains of Gordian were taken to Rome, and,
as we have seen, a cenotaph was erected near Zaitha. Without any
hesitation the Senate recognized the new Augustus, and confirmed
the appointment as Caesar of his son M. Julius Severus Philippus,
who was at most but seven years old. Philip had already con-
cluded peace with the Persians. His desire to gain personal
contact with Rome with all possible speed may have been increased
by the memory of the fate of Maximinus. By the terms of the
peace the Empire retained possession of Lesser Armenia and
Mesopotamia. We cannot accept the report of Zonaras^ according
to which the Emperor first ceded Armenia and Mesopotamia,
only to withdraw from this compact under the pressure of the
ill-feeling thus created. For this must have meant the renewal of
the war, and of that we have no record. On the other hand a
criticism by Zosimus^ of the consequences of the peace may
find its justification in the fact that henceforth relations with
Greater Armenia became less close. Philip returned home to the
West as ‘Parthicus’ and ‘Persicus Maximus’. He left his brother
Priscus behind as governor of Mesopotamia; Nisibis and Singara
each received the additional name of Julia; the old Sichem-
Neapolis was dignified as ‘colonia Julia Sergia Neapolis'; at the
place probably where Philip was born in Trachonitis near the
Shuhba of to-day, was founded the town of Philippopolis with
the rights of a colonia, and Bostra received the distinguishing title
‘colonia metropolis.’ The Thracian Philippopolis also received
from this emperor the status of a colonia, possibly on his return
march from frie East. Coins give evidence of the celebration of
games on this occasion at Beroea in Macedonia®. On 23 July, 244,
at the latest, Philip entered Rome^. A first donative, to be
followed by three more, proves that he felt the traditional anxiety
to win the good will of the citizens. His relations with the Senate
seem to have developed favourably from the beginning. What was
expected of the new ruler is shown in the encomium of a contem-
porary rhetorician, entitled Eis basilea, which is preserved in the
collection of Aelius Aristides’ orations®. In this pamphlet is
sketched, in clear contrast with the abuses of recent times, the
ideal picture of the just ruler, equipped with the Stoic virtues,
1 XII, 19 583). 2 lu, 32, 4.
® See Volume of Plates v, 232, if. * Dessau 505.
® E. Groag in Wim. Stud. Xh, 1918, pp. CLOsqq.\ Rostovtzeff, op. cit.
pp. 397 sqq., 614 sqq.i Germ. eA il, pp. 159, 165, 354 sqq.
II, V] PHILIP THE ARABIAN 89
who should be above all a benevolent prince
^SacriXeus): the best man should be emperor: he should be the
master, not the servant, of the soldiery. How far the reality
corresponded with this ideal it is impossible to say; but at least
it is certain that the reality fell short of the ideal in one respect;
for Philip sought to found a dynasty. Marcia Otacilia Severa, the
mother of his little son, was raised to the rank of Augusta; his
brother was advanced to an important office, and soon afterwards,
in the spirit of this family policy, Severianus, the Emperor’s
brother-in-law, was honoured with a high command. Philip
even had his father Marinus consecrated, in order to procure for
his family a further title to legitimacy^.
Zealously and earnestly the Emperor devoted himself to his
imperial duties. A touch of clemency may be seen in the decree
declaring a general amnesty for those suffering exile or relegation®.
A number of decisions in the Codex Justinianus, especially those
which date from the beginning of the reign, are concerned with
questions of civil rights. A noteworthy ordinance provides that
appeal could be made only to the emperor against a decision which
had been given by an official acting for the emperor (vice principis).,
i.e. the Praetorian Prefects or their deputies®. The co-operation of
the consilium principis is also mentioned once in the Code of Jus-
tinian^. Philip also had to intervene against the injustice of the
Treasury administration®. Yet on the other hand his government
could not waive the legal claims of the State against its subjects,
in view of the heavy demands upon its finances. For instance,
the fact that a son was a prisoner of war was not to be an excuse
for his father’s failure to fulfil his obligations®. Though poets
were expressly forbidden to claim immunity from taxation'^, there
is no need to infer from this that Philip was a man of no education
or that he was hostile to culture. As ambassador of Athens, his
birthplace, the sophist Nicagoras presented an address to the
Emperor. Some would see in Nicagoras the author of the Eis
hasilea\ but in that case it cannot be identified with his Pres-
beutikos or ambassadorial address, for that must have referred to
the purpose of his mission and no such reference is to be
found in the Eis basilea^. The position of members of the
municipal councils is illuminated by the fact that sons of the
decuriones were compelled to undertake posts of honour and fulfil
^ See Volume of Plates v, 232, /.
2 Cod. Just. IX, 51, 7. ® Ik nj 26, 3. ^ Ib. VII, 26, 6.
®/Lix, 49, 5. «JA x, 52, 2. ’’ Ib.x, Si, 2 ’
? Cf. W. Stegemannj P.W. Nikagoras (8), cols. 217 sq, ; ■
90 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap.
public duties in their fathers’ communities^. For the rest, Philip
was a good enough soldier to continue on his part the building
of roads^. But with all his good will he was not able every-
where to remove the prevailing abuses. It is thus a bad sign
for the security of communications that in Petra Pertusa in
Umbria a company of marines from Ravenna had to be called up
to combat brigandage^. An example of oppression of the worst
type is contained in a petition addressed directly to the Emperor
from imperial coloni of the Phrygian village Arague (before the
summer of 247) complaining of unprecedented extortion at the
hands of ofBcers and soldiers, municipal officials and imperial
functionaries^. Whether imperial subjects elsewhere really enjoyed
that peaceful and quiet life which was praised by the petitioners
in contrast with their own unhappy experiences may fairly be
doubted, for, from the second yearof this reign at latest, the empire
had to suffer from war and soon from riots also with all their
consequences.
Perhaps as early as 244 the Carpi threatened the frontiers, and
when in 245 neither Prastina Messallinus, governor of Lower
Moesia, nor Severianus, who commanded a still larger force, was
able to drive the enemy back over the Danube, Philip himself
took over the supreme command before the end of the year. By
this time however Lower Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia had
been extensively ravaged, as is proved by the cessation of the
coinage. In the summer of 246 the Emperor was in Dacia, where
he granted to the sorely afflicted province the right of coinage.
The provincial Era which is reckoned from this grant begins
about 20 July in this year®. The triumphal title ‘Germanicus
Maximus’ is our only evidence for successful conflicts with the
Germans, presumably the Quadi. In the next year Philip was able
to add with pride the title ‘Carpicus Maximus.’ After winning a
battle he drove a body of the Carpi to shut themselves up in a
fortress. A sortie and an attempt at relief were both repelled,
thanks to the valour of his troops, the Moors in particular, and
he was able to force the weakened enemy to conclude peace. He
then returned to, Rome, and there, availing himself of the im-
pression produced by this victory, raised his son to the rank of
^ Cod. 'Just. X, 39, 3.
® Cf. E. Stein, P.W. s.v. Julius (Philippus), col. 766.
® Dessau 509.
* O.G.I.S. 519, cf. Rostovtzeff, op. pp. 426, 621; Germ. ed. ii, pp.
1 85, 364 with a new attempt at restoring the inscription.
® Cf. F. S. Salisbury and H. Mattingly, y.R.S. xiv, 1924, pp. 21 ryy.
II, y] WARS ON THE DANUBE FRONTIER 9 1
Augustus (before June 247)^. Tbe empress Otacilia now received
the honorific appellation of ‘mater Augusti et castrorum et senatus
et patriae^.’ By the imperial dignity of the young Philip a real
double principate was again created, for the son was also Pontifex
Maximus. It is noticeable too that hereafter on inscriptions and
coins his tribunkia fotestas is so reckoned as if he had already
received it while he was as yet only Caesar. It is reasonable to see
in this, as well as in the use of the title Sebastos before the actual
promotion to Augustus, nothing else than an attempt to give more
than his legal due to the son of the emperor and the heir to the
throne®. But the practice of Philippus himself must have inspired
this attitude, since even from the beginning of the reign his
decrees were published in the joint names of himself and his son
the Caesar^; and this again may be connected with his dynastic
policy.
Meanwhile the year had dawned which, according to the
Varronian calculation, concluded the first millennium from the
foundation of the City of Rome. At the beginning of this year of
jubilee on 2 1 April 247 the Emperor was in the field, and so the
secular games and millenary celebrations had to adorn its close.
With impressive magnificence the two Augusti, as consuls of the
year, the father for the third and the son for the second time,
fulfilled the traditional religious ceremonies and presided over the
splendid games in the Circus Maximus, for which had been
preserved the many wild beasts collected in expectation of
Gordian Ill’s triumph over the Persians. The new dynasty was
thus able to regard itself as the starting-point of a new saeculum
and was celebrated as such. In these exuberant festivities the.
favour of the Roman populace could be wooed j for Philip’s
government had otherwise been able to spend but little on the
capital. We hear only of the building of a water reservoir (lacus)
in Transtiberim®. But what a change had come over the Roman
world in the two hundred and fifty years since Augustus had
celebrated the birth of a new saeculum — nay, even in the century
1 Bosch, op. cit. p. 57 n. 284. ® Dessau 513.
® Cf. Schulz, op. cit. p. 246 } Kornemann, op. cit. p. 98.
* Cf. the inscription of AraguS cited above (p. 90, n. 4); Cod. Just.
IV, 29, 10 (of 15 Aug. 244) and often elsewhere. That in the only
dated Codex passage after the appointment of the son as Augustus (ix, 32, 6)
this title is not expressed is explicable on the ground that (in 32, 5) ‘Imp.
Philippus A. et Philippus C.’ was corr^ly given and then was. mistakenly
followed by ‘ Idem A(ugustus) et C(aesar).’
® Aurelius Victor, xxynij I.:
92 THE SENATE AND THE ARMY [chap
which had elapsed since the ninth-centenary festival of Antoninus
Pius! He who now bore the name of Augustus was an Arab, and
however closely he may have identified himself with the duties of
his imperial station, yet the true Rome and the Roman character,
to which men thought that in those days of festival they were
doing homage, remained for him, and must remain, alien and
foreign. But where in Rome were these things then to be found?
A strange dispensation of fate had decreed that this millenary
jubilee was to be the last secular celebration. This changed world
is strikingly exemplified in the work of the Christian historian
Orosius^, who, by a misreading of the facts, makes Philip cele-
brate the festival in honour of Christ and of the Church.
There were, however, counter forces still at work which sought
to maintain the old order. Now begins the period when the
Danubian troops, especially the Pannonians, feel themselves to be
the representatives and guardians of the true Roman mrtus. Thus
the same army with which Philip had won his victories, already
perhaps in reaction against the new Oriental dynasty, set up a rival
emperor in Ti. Claudius Marinus Pacatianus, an officer probably
of senatorial birth. Not long after the millenary festivities, which
Pacatianus commemorated on his coinage with the legend ‘Romae
aeter(nae) an(no) mill(esimo) et primo^,' the recently gained security
of the provinces on the lower Danube was again endangered. The
sequel to the revolt of the army was an invasion of the Goths, to
whom the annual allowances had recently not been paid, or rather
could not be paid. Under Argaithus and Gunthericus the Goths
broke into Roman territory. The Carpi, Taifali, Asdingian Vandals
and Peucini followed their example in large numbers. Marciano-
polis was besieged, but the city stoutly resisted, thanks to its
renovated walls and the valour of its inhabitants who were led by
a Thracian called Maximus. After a second vain assault the enemy
withdrew with heavy casualties. Even before the usurpation of
Pacatianus had produced its fatal consequences, revolts broke out
in the East, the cause of which is to be found in the far too strict
regime which had been enforced by the Emperor’s brother
Priscus. After serving as governor of Mesopotamia he had been
entrusted, as ‘praefectus praetorio rectorque orientis,’ with super-
vision of the general administration of the East. The excessive
pressure of taxation led to disturbances in which one Jotapianus
assumed the purple in the border territory between Cappadocia
and Syria. In Syria itself appeared a third usurper, Julius Aurelius
Sulpicius Uranius Antoninus, in whom we should doubtless see
1 vri, 20, 3.
® See Cohen®, v, p. 182, no. 7.
THE MILLENNIUM OF ROME
IL V]
93
a relative of the Uranius of Severus Alexander’s reign. This latter
pretender was able to hold out, in the critical time which followed,
until 25'3/4.
These repeated blows of misfortune, threatening the dissolution
of the Empire, shook Philip’s self-confidence to such a degree
that in the Senate he offered to abdicate. Decius, who was then
probably City Prefect^, was the only member who opposed this
offer. His reference to the weakness of these usurpers was justified
in the case of Jotapianus and of Pacatianus; for the latter was soon
afterwards killed by his own soldiers, and the former also met his
end before the close of Philip’s reign. . And now the Emperor,
in attempting to clarify and secure affairs in the Danubian pro-
vinces, pursued a course which was destined to lead to his own
downfall. In Decius he recognized the man who could re-establish
order there. It was with reluctance that Decius, who foresaw the
result of a military success, allowed himself to be persuaded into
accepting this commission which gave him the supreme command
in Moesia and Pannonia. If we may believe the account of Jor-
danes in his Getica^, a part of the soldiers had made common cause
with the Goths. However, before the year 248 had reached its
close, Decius must have succeeded in discharging his mission by
some means or other; for an inscription of this year from Romula
(now Recka on the right bank of the Alt), which had been
fortified and probably made a colonia at this time, speaks of
Philip and his house as Testitutores orbis totius®.’
The energetic action of Decius seems to have repressed the
Goths and their allies, for in spite of the turmoil of the following
year they kept peacefully within their own territory. But the
more the general succeeded in getting his troops in hand and in
winning their confidence, the more worthy they thought him of
the imperial power. In June 249 they compelled him to assume
the purple. He sought an understanding with Philip and pro-
mised to lay aside his imperial insignia on arrival in Rome.
His sincerity may be gauged from the fact that he did not at first
have his name and image stamped on the coins : he may perhaps
have even continued to coin money in the name of Philip*.
1 Johannes Antioch, frag. 148, F.H.G. iv, 598. Cf. Wittig, P.W. s.v.
Messius (9), col. 1250, who, on insufficient grounds, assumes the year 249.
^ XVI, 90, p. 81,91^. Mommsen.
® Dessau 510; cf. E. Stein, op. cit. col. 763.
* So we may interpret the coins of Upper Moesia from Viminacium
carrying the year xi for Philip and Otadlia. G. Elmer, Num. Z., N.F.
xxvra, IQ2?, p. 2Q, regards these coins as genuine. For another view see
Wittig, 0^. d/. col. 1267.
94 the senate and THE ARMY [chap.
The latter, however, did not trust Decius, and gathered an army.
The Emperor had already stationed auxiliary troops in the fortified
Concordia in Venetia^ and a strong detachment of the legion
XIII Gemina at Aquileia^. Apart from the troops in garrison in
Italy we have no information about the composition of the army
at whose head Philip, now in ill health, marched to meet Decius.
But numerically it is said to have been superior to that of his
opponent when the two forces met in September near Verona.
Philip met his death in the battle, and the fortune of war
decided in favour of the Pannonian Decius. On receipt of this
news in Rome the Praetorians put the young Philip to death
in their camp. A late tradition declares that the Philips were
deified^*, but the fictitious claim of the Emperor Licinius Licinianus
to be related to the house of Philip may have given rise to the
story. The erasure of their names from inscriptions proves the
contrary for the time of their downfall.
But in the Christian tradition the fact that Philip fell at the
hands of Decius has brought him the place of honour as the first
Christian emperor. It is true that at the beginning of 249 a pagan
mob attacked the Christians in Alexandria (p. 520 but for this
there was certainly no official responsibility. Thus Dionysius, the
contemporary bishop of Alexandria, could call the conduct of the
Emperor a benevolent toleration. That Philip observed such
a principle is shown by the fact that in his reign the bishop of
Rome, Fabianus, could transfer to the capital the bones of Pontianus,
who had died in exile in Sardinia. Letters which Origen sent to
the Emperor and his wife prove only that they took an interest in
religious questions ; and from the fact that Eusebius knows of these
letters but does not use them in proof of Philip’s Christianity
it is clear that the Emperor was not a Christian, neither bap-
tised nor catechumen. But to a generation of the faithful who
had witnessed the horrors of the persecutions and who could, not
wholly without reason, see in Decius’ persecution a reaction
against the policy of Philip, the benevolent tolerance of the
latter was a sufficient proof of an inner inclination towards
Christianity. The time, however, had not yet come when a Roman
emperor was to fill with new life the universal claims of the
Imperium Romanum by uniting them with the equally universal
^ Dessau 9479.
2 C.I.L. V, 808; cf. H. M. D. Parker, History of the Reman World
from A.D. 138 to 33 y, pp. 156, 341, n. 25.
® Eutropius, tx, 3; cf. E. Stein, Hermes, ui, 1917, pp. 571 sqq., who
would attribute the consecration to Constantine 1 .
THE FALL OF PHILIP
IL V]
95
claims of the Christian Church. Those threatening years still lay
ahead in which Church and Empire alike were to undergo the
severest trials. The fall of Philip was the preface to this period
of distress. His rise as well as his overthrow had shown once
more in the sharp illumination of inexorable facts that ‘an emperor
could be made elsewhere than at Rome.’ And, for those who had
eyes to see, it could no longer remain a secret that the army created
the emperors. Harsh reality had trampled underfoot the swelling
ambitions of the Senate. What was left to it was merely the right,
uncontested indeed but hardly ever in the future freely exercised,
to co-operate in conferring that legal sanction which established
a new master of the Roman world.
CHAPTER in
THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND
L THE LANDS BETWEEN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
AND CHINA
R ome was not overthrown in a day. It was the work of
_ centuries that produced the great tidal wave which in the
dawn of the Middle Ages was to sweep away those solid
barriers (as they seemed) which the Roman Empire had erected
wherever its frontiers stretched. For centuries before this decisive
event, the great plains of Eastern Europe and the steppes or high
plateaux of central Asia, which one day were to impart the final
impetus, obscure as they are and often silent, were in fact the
scene of vast upheavals of peoples which presaged ruin for distant
lands. It is truer to say that one knows that it happened than how
it happened, for certainly the scanty archaeological or historical
evidence at our disposal for the period before the middle of the
fourth century (the subject of this chapter) for the most part is
neither very clear nor very conclusive. The task is to bring order
out of this chaos as best one can, and to elucidate the handful of
facts which represents the sum of our present knowledge.
There is one fact, however, which should be made clear from
the first. The many territories comprised in the area between the
Roman and Chinese Empires, though they lack unity either geo-
graphical or political, were nevertheless engaged throughout their
whole extent in a perpetual travail which reacted on almost every
one of their peoples, diverse as they were in origin and language,
since almost all experienced indirectly the effects of events in which
one or other of them was directly involved. Each impulse starting
from one end of this immense ^entre-deux' passes from group to
group and produces adjustments which affect the whole mass.
One group alone seems to stand as an exception to this rule, and
watches the passage of the centuries unmoved, namely the central
group of peoples of Indo-European language already long settled
as farmers on the narrow strips of alluvial land which they inhabit
to this day, extending round the inner circumference of the Tarim
basin and as far as the northern slopes of the T’ien-shan in Dzun-
garia. These interesting peoples, industrious and not unskilful,
Ill, I] THE CULTURE OF CHINESE TURKESTAN 97
have watched the conquerors pass, and a succession of con-
querors has, in effect, passed along the edges of the neigh-
bouring deserts. But they themselves have cared for none of these
things, indifferent to everything except the cultivation of their soil
and always ready to accept any overlord whose demands did not
exceed the act of submission and the payment of a tribute : even
had they had the will to resist they lacked the power, scattered as
they were in their little cities on an attenuated line more than a
thousand miles long.
This group is to-day one of the best known of any, thanks to the
notable discoveries of Aurel Stein, Grtinwedel, A. von Le Coq,
Pelliot and Hackin, who have excavated considerable remains of
their ancient civilizations (though none, unfortunately, belonging
to the period now under review), and have drawn from their hiding-
places very many precious manuscripts^ which illustrate the in^-
tellectual side of their culture. Here indeed, in the very heart of
Asia, survived the culture of the ancient Sacae from beyond the
Oxus, of whom the most westerly branches spoke the East-
Iranian language, while their kinsmen in the North-East, at
Kucha, Karashahr and Turfan, spoke a different language formerly
known as Tocharish but now more correctly called the Kuchean
or Turfanese language, which seems to be nearer to the pure
Indo-European group. But this interesting group of peoples does
not itself play any active part in our period. Extraordinarily im-
pressionable as it is, it engages our interest here only because it
helps us to reconstruct some of the links in the long chain which
runs over great deserts and high mountain-passes, and joins to-
gether the different populations scattered over those vast lands
between the two Empires of Rome and China. For the Indo-
Europeans of this central zone, which corresponds roughly to
Chinese Turkestan, form a stable mass which hitherto has defied
alike the nomads of the steppes and the armies of China; but they
are also a pole of attraction, because the great routes across Asia
go through their lands, and thus, while they lose nothing of their
own individuality, they are a possible connecting-link between the
Western and Eastern civilizations.
The chief of these Asiatic routes is the famous ‘Silk-route,’
known to us mainly through what is said of it by the Greek geo-
grapher Ptolemy in the second century of our era, a route which
for some time linked up the Chinese Empire with the world of
Parthia and Rome. Starting in Syria it climbed to the Iranian
^ As an example of this may be dted the Manichaean documents
referred to below, p. 504 17. • : : ■ ; , , . : ^ , -
98 THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap.
highlands by way of Edessa, Nisibis, Ecbatana, Rhagae, Bactra and
the mountains of the Comedae (the modern Kumedh, in the Pamirs),
to reach, between R.oshan and Ferghana, the silk-market at the
spot that bore the name of the ‘Stone Tower’ (kWivo’i Trypyoi),
where the caravans from the Levant exchanged their wares with
the caravans from China. Ptolemy, relying on Marinus of Tyre,
even relates how a Graeco-Syrian merchant (whom some take to
have been a subject of the Parthian Empire^), Maes Titianus by
name, had dispatched agents along this route as far as the city of
the ‘Seres.’ This city may belong to Kan-su, whether Si-an-fu, or
even the capital of the Later Han, Lo-yang or Ho-nan-fu. About
its identity geographers are not yet agreed, as is true also of the
Roman names of the places which marked the course of the ‘ Silk-
route,’ Issedon Scythicaand IssedonSerica, which may be Kashgar
and Kucha, or Kucha and Lou-lan, north of the Lop-Nor. It was
along this route that Buddhist missionaries from North-West
India and Afghanistan, which then formed the Indo-Scythian
Empire, brought to the Tarim basin the elements of what is called
the Graeco-Buddhist civilization. From the first century to the
fifth, Indian monks, in fact, unceasingly made their way by the
passes of the Pamirs from Kashgar to Tun-huang, whether by
Yarkand and Khotan on the south or by Kucha, Karashahr and
Turfan on the north, as they pressed on to preach the gospel of
Buddha, at first in all the Indo-European oases of the Tarim and
later in China itself. These brought with them, as they had brought
to the Indo-Scythian Empire of the Punjab and Afghanistan, that
Graeco-Roman art in which they then found their means of
expression.
It may, moreover, be observed how other elements of Graeco-
romanization became added at the same time to the Graeco-
Roman images of Buddha that were imported into this Tarim
region. These elements were brought by trade all along the route
from Antioch to Si-an-fu. Sir Aurel Stein, in his exploration of the
oases mentioned above, has found — though for a period earlier
than the fourth century — striking evidence of this double in-
fluence. At Rawak, near Khotan, he has discovered bas-reliefs of
the first century of our era carved in stucco with figures of bodhi-
sattvas, notable for their truly hellenic nobility and harmonious
proportions®. At Rawak, too, and also at Yotkan (formerly Khotan)
and in the valley of the Niya between Khotan and the Lop-Nor, he
has found Roman sealings of the same period representing Pallas
Athenaarmed with thethunderbolt and wearing the aegis® and also
^ Vol. XI, p. 122. ® Volume of Plates v, 132, a, b, c. ® lb. 1^2, d.
r-c-
■' 'T. ■■
I III, II] CONTACTS WITH THE EMPIRE 99
I Zeus, an Eros, a Heracles, and four-horsed chariots, finally Indo-
Scythian coins from Afghanistan. At Miran, south of the Lop-Nor,
I classical influence is yet more clearly visible and displays the
j particular effect of Roman Asia Minor. Among the fragments of
frescoes brought from this region by Sir Aurel Stein may be noted
I a Buddha followed by his monks which is in a purely Roman tradi-
tion, beardless ‘angels’ or genii, some winged some wingless,
in red mantles that recall the art of Pompeii, and figures also beard-
less and wearing on their heads the Phrygian cap which gives them
the appearance of Mithras. These frescoes, which belong to the
I third century of our era, afford striking analogies with the painting
I of Roman Syria and the Fayfim of Imperial times. One of them
' bears an inscription in Indian characters which gives the name of
the painter Tita, which may well be an indianized form of Titus.
II. THE CIVILIZATION OF THE STEPPES
Noteworthy as are the facts that have been described, it would
: doubtless be rash to regard them as the dominating factor in
j deciding what were the influences that counted for most in the
» history of the relations between Asia and Europe in the period
under review.
Indeed, the lands between China and the Roman frontiers are,
above all, the meeting-point of two great streams of culture : on the
; one hand the Sarmatian, certainly the stronger of the two, rising
near the Roman frontiers or, more exactly, from the regions
occupied by the nomad Goths, and on the other hand the Turko-
Mongol stream, rising near the frontiers of the Chinese Empire
or, more exactly, from around the modern Ordos in lands occupied
at that time by the eastern Hsiung-nu. The meeting of these two
streams, reinforced by tributaries which in the same way rose
\ either in the West or in the East, produced a kind of hybrid civili-
zation common, as it seems, to all the nomads between the
1 Roman Empire and China; and this, in fact, is an early symptom,
I and a clear one, of that close intercourse between widely differing
region of Asia, not indeed to the settled Indo-European popula-
tion of the Tarim, which remained unaffected by the various nomad
civilizations, but to the Turko-Mongol peoples who frequented
the high pastures round or between the upper Irtysh and the
Tarbagatai Mountains on the one hand, and the upper Orkhon
and the northern bend of the Huang-ho on the other. It is here
'
peoples which has been suggested above, and which may be em-
phasized here.
To get a clear view of it, one should turn to this same central
loo THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap.
that one can get the best impression of that art which for want of a
better name is called or miscalled ‘the art of the steppes^.’ In the
period under review, it had long since acquired its essential
character; but it continued to develop in matters of detail, for the
sufficient reason that the nomads who were its exponents were
always on the move. It appears most plainly in bronze plates for
harness or armour, standard-staffs with the most interesting
stylized animal decoration depicting, among other things, in
arresting foreshortening, deer (cervidae) or wild beasts, strangely
entwined in mortal combat^; and finally, jewels and ornaments
originally encrusted with glass beads, though usually only the
sockets still survive. Naturally the products of this art are nearly
always very difficult to date, but there seems very little doubt that
in the third and fourth centuries it was still very far from being
worked out, and throughout this period we encounter it constantly,
with local variants or perhaps with one or other of its component
elements predominating, over the length and breadth of the regions
between China and the Roman Empire. The discoveries of the last
fifty years, some of them very recent, allow us now to define,
though still very imperfectly, some of its typical manifestations,
and they fall into four main groups.
The Sarmatian group, which comes first, is close to the lands
inhabited by the Goths or by peoples of Graeco-Roman civiliza-
tion, and hence naturally shows clear traces of having been
directly influenced by Hellenistic art. Iranian art, too, made its
influence felt upon it, but in spite of the combination of influences
this group furnishes (in the south-west) the farthest outpost of
‘the art of the steppes.’ This point has been developed in another
chapter devoted to the Sarmatian peoples®, both those of them who
became amalgamated with the Goths and those who, farther East,
kept their independence under the name of Alans; but it will
perhaps be useful to emphasize the great interest of some of the
treasures found at Novocherkask and now thought (with high
probability) to belong to the third century of our era^. One of the
most interesting is a diadem of gold, with decoration in pearls,
garnets and amethysts: in the centre is a large Hellenistic or
Roman cameo, but on the upper rim are cervidae and trees showing
the taste and manner of all the ornaments which are most charac-
teristic of the art of the steppes. The thighs of the animals are
hollowed into pear-shaped sockets intended for precious or semi-
1 The nomads, of course, frequented the hi^ plateaux as well as the
steppes themselves. ® Volume of Plates v, 134, a, b.
® Vol. XI, chap. in. * Volume of Plates v, 136, a.
roi
III, n] THE CULTURE OF THE STEPPES
precious stones in a style that appears again on a silver belt from
Maikop and on a number of objects worked in precious metal
from Siberia and especially from the region of Lake Baikal, Other
Sarmatian objects of the second and third centuries which have
been found in proximity to these, such as scabbard-ornaments in
the form of sledges or ringed sword-pommels, have been matched
by similar discoveries in Eastern Asia, which indeed are no doubt
their prototypes.
The second group of discoveries belongs to the countries on
both sides of the Ural Mountains, in the neighbourhood of Perm
and notably at Kachka in the heart of the Finno-Ugrian country,
or, again, farther south in the province of Orenburg, or finally on
the other side of the pass of Ekaterinburg near Shadrinsk. The
finds in these parts, some of them at least dating from the third
and early fourth centuries, are closely related to the products of
Sarmatian art; they include buckles, necklaces, gold and silver
rings, fibulae, swords, filigree earrings and enamelled glass beads^.
Comparable with these finds are those of Pianibor near Sarapul
about two hundred and twenty miles below Perm on the River
Kama, where the conical earrings (made of a metal thread wound
into spirals), the pendants in the shape of bird or horse, or the
bronze brooches shaped like epaulettes, characteristic as they are,
have points in common with the finds of the Ural district.
Much farther east, on the upper Yenisei and more particularly
near Minusinsk, various excavations, unhappily without method,
have brought to light incidentally a respectable number of objects
that can be assigned probably to the second, third and fourth cen-
turies of our era. Especially noteworthy are knives of bronze or
iron, excellent bronze bowls, and pieces of armour or harness
decorated in the animal style so characteristic of the civilization of
the steppes.
Finally, on the borders of China round the bend of the Huang-
ho and in Ordos, a fourth group, closely related to the third,
shows more perfect and more highly developed examples of this
same animal style of art, and among them excellent plaques with
polycephalic animals and with human heads, to be dated probably
to the third century, and also bronze or iron knives and cylindrical
bowls not unlike those of Minusinsk®.
To this highly schematic picture should be added some mention
at least of various sporadic groups such as that revealed by the
finds at Kosibejevo in the province of Tambov to the east of the
upper Don, or the group from the province of Kaluga on the River
1 Volume of Plates v, 136, L : ® Ib. 134, c, I 3 ^» <7— ’i ■ 1 '
102
THE BARBARIAN [chap.
Oka south of Moscow. Both yield a great number of objects be-
longing almost certainly either to the third century or perhaps (in
Kaluga at any rate) to the fourth, and introduce us to an art which
stands between the Sarmato-Gothic and that of the countries occu-
pied by the Germans south of the Baltic. Fibulae from Kosibejevo,
or those in the shape of triangles or horseshoes from Kaluga, neck-
laces with perforated terminal discs (at Kosibejevo), or enamelled
jewels, bracelets and crescents- — all these things, and others, make
up a curious hybrid art that certainly implies a regular traffic
across the barbarian hinterland between the Baltic provinces and
the countries of the Black Sea.
It is this that gives to certain products of the art which the
Russian excavations are slowly bringing to light their air of be-
longing together in a way that often seems disconcerting. But
through ail this tangle of interacting influences one thread can be
followed by the most casual eye; no one can deny the extra-
ordinary continuity of an art of which on the one hand the mani-
festations appear sufficiently varied to prevent confusion (the Ural
and Minusinsk groups, for example, are perfectly distinct), while,
on the other hand, its extremes, so to speak, meet in the oddest way,
as one can see in the Sarmatian group and the group from Ordos,
where the same armour-plates and lance-handles repeat themselves
in the same animal style.
The first general impression that one gets from this common art
is that it is a stereotyped art. In our period its subj ects seem already
fixed and time-honoured, the result of the meeting and blending
of many ancestral influences. It has been affected, or even shaped
(in degrees and proportions varying with place or period), by
the ancient civilizations of Greece and Iran and China; yet it is
perhaps in our period most of all that it shows itself as at once
homogeneous and mature. It has its realism, but above all it
relies on simplification, as can best be seen from a glance at those
little heads of foxes or asses reduced to their essential features, or
at the pole-tops in the shape of cervidae that are so common in our
museums. Moreover, its principal aim is decoration. Even in
those dramatic contests of animals in which some of the artists
excel, even when they portray the terrifying spectacle of these
ferocious creatures tearing their prey with sharp fangs or twisting
their bodies with all the power of their muscles, still they cannot
resist the temptation to frame the scene, or even to obscure it,
with a regular network of curved lines. The antlers of the cervidae
or the horses’ manes issue in spirals or ringlets; horns and tails
merge into foliage or into heads of birds or gryphons; the nostrils
Ill, II] THE ART OF THE NOMADS 103
curl round in spirals. The animal loses itself in its own decoration,
dense as of tropical undergrowth. Decorative indeed is this art
of the steppes, in its very essence, decoration is its one purpose,
and one must admit that it succeeds. Even the stylization in which
it takes such delight is only another means to this end.
It may well be asked whether there is no other conclusion to be
drawn from a study of the works which it has produced, whether
the historian is not justified in trying to look beyond the passive
material of the archaeological finds to a glimpse of that life itself
which he is denied by the absence of contemporary texts, though
the want is satisfied in the periods immediately before and after.
If it is true that a particular type of art reveals a particular type of
culture, one can see reflected here the features of those motley
hordes of nomads, sprung from diflFerent stocks but leading the
same kind of life, the peoples who in the third and fourth cen-
turies roamed the wide steppes between Rome and China. They
are horsemen, tireless horsemen, like the nomads who for centuries
are to pour into China and Europe: always and everywhere pieces
of harness are among the objects that meet our eye. Nomads and
drovers with no fixed abode (and consequently no cities), they
drive before them their herds of horses, cattle and sheep, from the
steppe to the hills and from hills to steppe in time with the seasons.
They are bandits, like all their kind, and they go armed, as ready
to attack others as to defend themselves, with their bows and keen
arrows — arrowheads are plentiful among the finds — ^with their
swords and their long lances, decorated with these stylized animals
which were used perhaps as insignia or as totems. They live by
hunting the wild beasts that abound in the desert, they pitch the
tentsof feltusedbyTurko-Mongol peoples from time immemorial,
they are followed by their women wearing gay dresses and orna-
ments sparkling with glass beads (those beads which we know
to-day only by their empty sockets) and no doubt riding with
their children and belongings in the same chariots in which they
are to appear later. From the picture of the Hsiung-nu of Mongolia
which survives from the second century b.c. in the Chinese
chronicle of the Han dynasty to the picture of the Huns of the
Danube frontier in Ammianus Marcellinus at the end of the
fourth century of our era, the same character lives and survives,
as does the art which is its product.
104 THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap.
III. THE WESTWARD EBB OF THE BARBARIANS OF
THE STEPPES
Among and between these nomads, then, there were perpetual
eddies. Asia was in flux, and the nations of the steppes were ever
ready to take the tide in their affairs which might lead them on to
better lands and to booty. The stronger hordes, those with a more
energetic ruler to bring them to greater victories, succeeded in
subduing the weaker one by one, and enrolling them in their turn
to join in assailing fresh tribes or winning fresh booty unless there
arose, from China, a strong power to impose order on all alike.
To keep out all these nomads the Chinese emperors had reared
a whole system of defences, a veritable limes, which was initiated,
in 12 1 B.C., by the great Han monarch Wu-ti. This limes, which
in more than one feature recalls some sectors of the Roman limes,
e.g. in the area of the Agri Decumates, had been formed, since
io8 B-c., of a continuous line of small forts and military colonies
from the present city of Su-chou, in Kan-su, as far as Tun-huang,
on the border of modern Chinese Turkestan, in the direction of
the Tarim. Along this line the Chinese were thenceforward in-
cessantly engaged in holding in check the barbarians, whose chief
element was the Turko-Mongol nomad tribes whom they called
without distinction by the name Hsiung-nu, probably the same
tribes who were called Huns by the people of the West. It was at
the western end of this line, on the other hand, that they strove
to secure the control of the ‘Silk-route’ and the suzerainty over the
Tarim basin, which the Hsiung-nu had never ceased to challenge.
They, therefore, sent expeditions, of which the most famous had
been under the second — ^the * later ’ — Han dynasty, when two great
Chinese generals, Tou Ku and Pan Ch’ao, had been enabled to
crush the Hsiung-nu in a.d. 73 near Lake Barkol and then in 75
near Yar, some distance from Turfan, after a counter-offensive
of the barbarians who had succeeded in conquering Kashgaria.
The last quarter of the first century had been filled with unceasing
struggles of the two generals, above all of Pan Ch’ao, to keep the
‘Silk-route’ free and to control it. Indeed, when Pan Ch’ao was
made governor-general at Kucha in the closing years of the cen-
tury, he seems to have turned his eyes to the countries of the West,
beyond the Tarim, if it is true that he sent his lieutenant Kan Ying
to make a reconnaissance to the borders of the Parthian Empire
and charged him in a.d. 97 to collect information about the distant
Ta-ts’in, the Roman Empire.
But despite the efforts of Pan Ch’ao and, later, those of his son
THE CHINESE EMPIRE
III, m]
105
Pan Yong to maintain the Chinese positions in these regions,
the troops of the Celestial Empire were compelled, in the course
of the second century, to make a deep withdrawal from the Tarim
and then from the limes^ in order to return to the defensive, and
even this defensive was maintained with difficulty when, in the last
quarter of the century, the Han dynasty, weakened by risings of
which the most serious was that of the ‘Yellow-hats ’ that broke out
in Chihli and Ho-nan in 184, sank into anarchy. Throughout all
the closing yeai*s of the century and the beginning of the third
century rebel military chiefs were making themselves masters in
the northern, southern and western provinces. It was the beginning
of the unhappy period known as ‘the Three Kingdoms’ (Wei,
Wu and Shu), and for nearly a century China was a prey to civil
war and consequently unable to police the steppes. The nomads,
also, had a free field in Central Asia. This was the great period
of the Tungus-Mongol (or Mongol-Tungus) hordes called the
Sien-pi, from the middle of the second century masters of Mongolia
proper, where they had overwhelmed most of the Hsiung-nu. From
there they had succeeded in extending their power by degrees from
the peninsula of Liao-tung (north-east of the gulf of Chihli) as far as
the Gobi desert, driving back such of the Hsiung-nu as refused to
submit to them, some towards the Altai Mountains, others to the
borders of China (of which some of these Hsiung-nu had for quite
a time become the more or less loyal allies) hard by the Great Wall,
in Ordos and to the north of the province of Shan-si.
These very troubled times, in which one gets the impression
that the whole of Asia was in ferment, lasted into the second half
of the third century. Then the unity of China was restored after a
fashion by the Ssu-ma family, who usurped the imperial throne
under the name of the Chin dynasty. Once again, as in the Han
period, the prestige of China began to make itself felt in Central
Asia, where, in their anxiety to escape conquest by the Sien-pi, the
Indo-European princes of the Tarim basin did homage to the
Celestial Empire (a.d. 285) — their saviour, as they hoped. There
was also a tendency for diplomatic relations to be formed at that
time between the Chinese Empire and Rome by way of the Tarim
region. The annalists, at least, indicate that in a.d. 284 the Chin
emperor received presents sent by the Ta-ts’in (the Roman
Empire). But this was only a pause. The Celestial Empire, so far
from saving others, could only save itself at the cost of admitting
within the Great Wall as foederati^ose of the Hsiung-nu who had
retired southwards before the Sien-pi. They settled more especially
to the north of. Shan-si, and, as in the Roman Empire, these
io6 THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap.
foreign protectors were apt to be dangerous if the central govern-
ment should weaken again, inasmuch as the Chinese, like the
Romans, in the course of the third century were obliged to
strengthen their army with a number of Hsiung-nu chiefs or
generals, who received Chinese titles.
At the beginning of the fourth century the decline of the Chin
dynasty hastened the catastrophe. One of the Hsiung-nu generals
who had been admitted into the Empire, Liu-yiian, established his
authority over all the Hsiung-nu foederati and installed himself in
A.D, 303—4 at T'ai-yiian, the capital of Shan-si, where he pro-
claimed himself Emperor in 308. In 31 1 his son Liu-ts’ung, a
kind of ferocious genius, invaded the province of Ho-nan, sacked
the Imperial capital Lo-yang, captured the feeble Emperor Chin
Huai-ti himself, and had him executed two years later. This was
the signal for barbarians from near and far to fall upon China as
their prey and to fight over her provinces and her plunder : among
the most formidable were the Hsiung-nu, Sien-pi and T’o-pa
(another group of Turk or Mongol tribes). The details of this
struggle are both bloody and obscure, but they are of much less
importance than the stark developments which they produced:
the Chinese Empire was systematically dismembered, and its
northern provinces Chihli, Shan-si, Shen-si, Shan-tung and Ho-
nan were torn from it. This vast and brutal operation served
to occupy all the forces of the steppes, a fact which probably
explains the temporary lull in the movements of peoples on the
eastern frontiers of the Roman Empire in Europe.
During the fourth century, however, the situation gradually
changes, and becomes more complex. On the one hand, the wars
of neighbouring ethnic groups, and within the groups them-
selves, started fresh movements which had their repercussions in
the steppes; but also the tracts of Mongolia, partially emptied of
Sien-pi when they conquered Chihli and Shan-tung (where they
split up in exhaustion), were now occupied by new hordes, pro-
bably of Mongols, and doubtless from the extremities of the
modern Manchuria. They were the Juan-juan, whose swift ex-
pansion in Mongolia became in less than fifty years a serious threat
to all the Hsiung-nu who still remained: these remnants had
breathed more freely since the descent of the Sien-pi upon China,
but they now began to feel the pressure of the new arrivals, whose
chiefs asserted their superiority by rejecting the Hsiung-nu title of
shan-yU in favour of the purely Mongol title of khan, and proceeded
to make themselves masters of all Mongolia and extend their
power from the gulf of Corea to the Altai Mountains. Moreover,
Ill, m] THE DISMEMBERMENT OF CHINA 107
they drove before them to the south-west, so as to press upon
Sogdiana and Bactria, other peoples who now enter the stage
of history, notably a group nearly related to the Juan-juan, the
Hephthalites (the Teta of the Chinese), who, under the name of
Huns which they shared with the Hsiung-nu, were destined to
cross swords with Persia and India. Similarly some of the bar-
barians established in Shen-si in north-western China, seeing no
easy conquests in the eastern provinces, set out again in the direc-
tion of Central Asia, where one of their chiefs, Fu Chien, later (in
A.D. 382) ruled over lands extending to Karashahr and Kucha. In
this way the passage became barred on every side.
It was at this time that the groups of the Hsiung-nu, who at
the beginning of the third century had been pushed back by the
Sien-pi towards the Altai Mountains, advanced towards the ex-
treme west of Asia. The details of the fearful struggle of nomads
that ensued are obscure; but its consequences are clear. Driven
from the Altai range the Hsiung-nu ended by crossing the
steppes which extend to the north of Lake Balkash and the Aral
Sea, There two choices lay before them, the route to the south-west
towards the Jaxartes valley and the rich lands of Sogdiana and
Bactria, or that to the west straight on towards the Volga. But
actually at this time their freedom of choice was restricted. The
Jaxartes valley had been occupied for more than three centuries by
the Yiieh-chih (the Indo-Sc)^ians mentioned by Greek his-
torians), who had been driven from Mongolia or near it about
170 B.C., and after a rough passage had finally settled here, where
they acquired a veneer of Greek and Hindu culture and founded a
powerful State which at one period, in the first century of our
era, had for a time extended beyond the upper Jaxartes valley
itself over the valley of the Oxus and the Hindu Kush, the lands
watered by the Indus, Pamir, Kashmir, the Panjab, and the plain
of the Ganges above Benares. Certainly this was already ancient
history, and partially effaced by their reverses from the be-
ginning of the third century onwards in obscure wars against the
Sassanids of Persia and the Gupta princes of India; but hard
pressed as they were by their enemies in the south, the Ytteh-
chih could still hold the regions of the Jaxartes securely enough,
and this being so the western Hsiung-nu had no alternative but
to keep straight on. About a.d. 35'5 they advanced westwards
with the intention of forcing their way at all costs across the great
plain of Russia.
This was the date at which the ‘great invasions’ of the West
begin. The Hsiung-nu, who had hitherto made history exclusively
io8 THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND [chap. Ill, m
in the East, now suddenly proceeded, under their new name of
Huns, to contribute their chapter to the history of Europe.
To study the nations of the steppes, though it may set us more
problems than it resolves, does answer some questions. The
barbarian invasions of the early Middle Ages are in a sense no
more than a sequel of the struggles which for so long had had the
steppes of Asia for their main battlefield, or at any rate the only
battlefield of which historical texts (the Chinese annalists) have
anything to tell us. Our literary sources in general tell us of the
developments in Mongolia and on the Yellow River and of those
on the banks of the Danube; but between the two tales there is a
gap. Here archaeology comes to our aid and supplies the missing
link in our chain of evidence : it is certainly not pure coincidence
that the early medieval art in Europe known as ‘barbarian art’ is
really only the continuation, almost without change, of what we
have hitherto called ‘the art of the steppes.’
It is impossible without going far beyond the chronological limits
of this chapter to give this fact its full and proper emphasis, though
the researches of the experts increasingly illustrate it. But one need
only remernber that it is from the soil of Hungary and Wallachia,
from tombs in the lands occupied by our European Huns after they
had broken down the barrier of the Goths, that perhaps the most
numerous and certainly the most characteristic specimens have
been recovered of an art that, with dilferent manifestations and
traditions, reappears in the tombs of the Goths, Franks, Bur-
gundians, Vandals, Lombards, and of all the Germanic peoples of
the West. Bronze cauldrons of the Huns identical with those of
Minusinsk and Ordos have been found by the River Kapos in the
heart of Hungary; the same knives also; and the jewels in glass-
ware, the fibulae, the clasps, the perforated baldric-plates, the pins
with animal heads which characterized the art of early medieval
Europe are nothing if not the ancient art of the steppes. The
steppes, it seems, have overflowed over Europe. The historian is
thus justified in crossing the arbitrary boundaries of two so-called
continents which are really the complement of each other, in quest
of the principle of continuity without which history itself becomes
a riddle without an answer.
CHAPTER IV
SASSANID PERSIA
1 . THE SASSANIAN EMPIRE: POLITICAL HISTORY
T owards the dose of the Second Century of our era the
king of Persis, a vassal of the Arsacid Great King, had his
capital at Stakhr (Istakhr) not far from Persepolis. The ruling
dynasty was that of the Basrangi, but the province of Persis con-
tained local principalities most of which were more or less inde-
pendent. Gochihr, the king at Stakhr, was attacked and put to
death by Pabhagh, son of Sassan, a high dignitary at the Temple
of Anahita in Stakhr, and of a Basrangian princess, whose name
seems to have been Denagh^. The successor of Pabhagh as king of
Persis was his eldest son Shapur, but Ardashir (Artakhshatr,
Artaxerxes), brother of Shapur and lord of Darabgerd with the
exalted military title of hargobadh (p. 1 1 4), rose in revolt against
him and became king in a. d. 208 Shapur having died suddenly,
in consequence of an accident, if the tradition may be trusted®.
After having reduced to submission all the local princes of
Persis, Ardashir seized the neighbouring province of Kerman,
next Ispahan, Susiana and Mesene. At this point the Great King
Artabanus V marched to attack in person this dangerous rebel, but
was defeated and killed, in a.d. 224^ in a great battle which was
fought according to Tabari in a plain called Hormizdeghan, the
whereabouts of which cannot be fixed. After conquering the
western provinces of the Arsacid Empire, Ardashir had himself
crowned in due form (a.d. 226) and took the title of King of Kings
(^Shahanshah) of Iran ®. Later expeditions won by arms the eastern
^ KbZ 11 . 27—28. KhZ = the new inscription of the ‘Ka‘ba of Zoro-
aster,’ on which see the Bibliography to this ^apter I, i, e.
2 The date is made certain by the inscription recently found at Shapur
(Sh. Shap.). See the comments of A. Christensen in the article of R. Ghirsh-
man. Rev. des arts asiat. x, 1936, p. 127 sq.
® The chronicle of Tabari is here the chief source. The genealogy of
Ardashir which it gives is found also in the inscriptions. According to KiZ
1 . 28, the mother of Ardashir was named Rodhagh. A popular legend makes
Ardashir, as formerly Cyrus, of humble origin j the Karnamagh, Agathias ii,
27 : see Christensen, Les gestes des rots dans les traditions de F Iran antique,
pp. 78 sqq.
^ Or 227 if the second Sassanian epoch year is followed (see above,
voL XI, p. Ill); the year 224 is implied by the inscription (Sh. Shap.)
mentioned above (note 2), ^ See Volume of Plates v, 234, a.
no SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
countries Seistan (Sacastene), Gurgan (Hyrcania), Abharshahr
(the modern Khorassan), Merv (Margiana), Baikh (Bactria),
Khvarezm (Chorasmia). Ardashir also seized Bahrein, and finally
the King of Kushan, ruler of the Valley of Cabul and of the
Panjab, and the Kings of Turan (Quzdar south of Quetta) and of
Makuran (now Mekran) recognized him as suzerain^. The war of
conquest which Ardashir waged against Rome is described later
in this chapter.
According to a tradition of doubtful value, Ardashir had taken
to wife an Arsacid princess, who was the mother of the prince
Shapur. At all events, Shapur, whom his father named heir to the
crown, was a grown man in 224, when he fought in the battle
against Artabanus. Ardashir’s consort was probably that Adhur-
Anahid whose name is found^ with the title of ‘ Queen of Queens ’
{panUshmn bdnbishn). Her name — the ‘Fire of Anahita’ — may
have been given to her to commemorate Ardashir’s coronation at
the fire-temple of Anahita at Stakhr. For this city remained the
holy city of the dynasty: four centuries later, according to Tabari,
the last Sassanid King, Yazdgard III, was crowned in that same
temple. But the capital of the Empire and the seat of the new
dynasty, as of its predecessor, was Ctesiphon.
Ardashir adopted, in its main lines, the organization and ad-
ministrative institutions of the Parthian State, as is attested by the
survival under the Sassanids of political and bureaucratic termin-
ology in the north-western dialect (Arsacid Pahlavi). What
differentiated the new Empire from that of the Parthians was, first
of all, a strong centralization, which substituted a unified State for
a loose congeries of vassal kingdoms. Such of its governors as
were of the royal stock bore the title of shah, but were none the less
no more than high officials in the Great King’s service. The feudal
system did not cease to exist. The vaspuhrs, the chiefs of the
feudal nobility, marched to war at the head of the levy of their
subjects, but these armies of peasants were ill organized and of
slight military value. Mercenaries also became more important.
The aristocratic mail-clad cavalry, which formed the elite of the
army, was probably recruited from the lesser feudal nobles who
were directly dependent on the crown. Furthermore, the fiefs of
the great families were scattered throughout all the corners of the
Empire. The administrative division into cantons was not or-
ganically connected with the several kinds of provincial govern-
* The account in Tabari is confirmed by the evidence of coins and by a
bas-relief at Salmas. See E. Herzfeld, Fathtli, pp. 36 sqq.
^ In JTiZ 1 24.
Ill
IV, i] THE RISE OF ARDASHIR
meats, which were all rather military in character. This was aimed
at preventing the governments from being feudal in tradition and
from becoming hereditary principalities.
The second characteristic of the Sassanid State is the creation of
an official Church resting on Mazdean doctrine, which had been
for centuries the common faith of the Iranian people and which
the Parthian kings had followed with a zeal that grew as iranism
prevailed over hellenism. The organization of the Mazdean — or,
one may say, Zoroastrian— religion into a State Church, like the
centralization of the royal power which it completed, was doubt-
less an innovation, but one which consummated a slow evolution.
This powerful Church was a very distinctive element in the civil-
ization of the Sassanian period. The Avesta^ the Holy Writ of
Mazdeism, had probably been set down in Aramaic characters in
the Arsacid period. According to the Zoroastrian tradition
Ardashir I caused a high clerical official {ehrbadhan ehrbadbi),
Tansar, his chief helper in the task of organizing the Mazdean
Church, to have the scattered texts of this Arsacid Avesta col-
lected and to produce a new edition of it which was authorized
and made canonicaP.
Ardashir, who died in a.d. 241, was followed by his son,
Shapur I, who was not formally crowned till 242 It seems that
the peoples of the Caspian provinces in the northern and eastern
marches had taken advantage of the change of kings to rise in
rebellion, for the Chronicle of Arbela states that Shapur, in the
first year of his reign, fought against and reduced to obedience the
Chorasmians, the Medes of the mountains {i.e. of Atropatene),
the Gelae, the Dailamites and the Hyrcanians. Furthermore, the
Pahlavi work ‘The cities of the Iranian Empire’ {Shahrestdneha t
Erdmhahdf relates that he defeated a king named Pahlezagh in
Khorassan, the eastern area of the kingdom, where he proceeded
to found the strong city of Nev-Shapur (Nishapur). He took the
title of ‘ King of Kings of Iran and Non-Iran.’
The war against Rome ended with the peace of a.d. 244
(p. 1 31). The Arab fortress of Hatra, south of what had been
Nineveh, which had held out against the attacks of Ardashir, was
reduced by Shapur. In Armenia the king Tiridates of a collateral
1 Prof. H. S. Nyberg, in a recent work, Irans fomtida religioner (Stock-
holm, 1937), adopts a highly sceptical view of the details of the traditional
narrative concerning the composition and collecting of the Avesta.
2 Volume of Plates V, 234, b.
® J. Markwart — G. Messina, A Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of
Eranshahr,y^. 12,52—3.
II2
SASSANID PERSIA
[chap.
branch of the Arsacid dynasty fled in 252 or 253 on the appearance
of a Persian army, which occupied the country. Then followed a
new Perso-Roman war, in which the Emperor Valerian suffered a
complete defeat and was taken prisoner (p. 135). This triumph
was immortalized by a series of Persian reliefs^. But Odenathus the
king of Palmyra, the great trading city in the Syrian Desert, joined
forces with what remained of the Roman troops and harried the
Persian army till it was driven beyond the Euphrates. Though
Shapur repeatedly attacked Palmyra it was without success.
Later, Tiridates returned to Armenia and once more ruled that
country.
The statesmanship and military qualities of Shapur I marked
him out as the worthy son of his father, and like his father he made
the succession secure by nominating the prince who was to follow
him. The Chronicle of Arbela describes him as harsh and stern.
But hard as he was to enemies within and without, he displayed a
notable tolerance in matters of religion. It is a well-attested fact
that he showed goodwill towards the great heretic Mani, whose
teaching was anathema to the Mazdean clergy, and Mani dedi-
cated to the king one of his chief works, the Shdkpuhraghan^.
According to the Armenian Chronicle of Elisaeus Vardapet, a
chief of the Magi, in a speech to the Armenians two centuries
later, related how Shapur, after vainly attempting to stamp out
Christianity, changed his policy and forbade the Magi and chiefs
of the Magi to continue their persecution, and proclaimed that
‘Magi, Manichaean {ZandtgK), Jew, Christian and all men of
whatever religion, should be left undisturbed and at peace in their
belief in the several provinces of Persia^.’ In this connection may
also be remembered the part played by Shapur in the story of the
composition of the Sassanian Avesta.
According to the Parsee tradition, the king caused to be in-
cluded among the holy books secular works on medicine, astro-
nomy and metaphysics found in India, Greece and other countries.
It is probable that these were really works compiled by Iranians
1 See below, p. 1 23. It is also, perhaps, the subject of a battle-scene on a
fresco at Doura (M. Rostovtzeff, Caravan Cities, pp. no sqq.) and it is
mentioned in the inscription KbZ I. 13 in connection with the city of Urhai
(Edessa).
® For Manichaeism, see below, pp. 504 sqq.
® See V. Langlois, Coll, des historiens de I'ArmSnie, 11, p. 203 sq. E. Herz-
feld has called attention to a passage, unfortunately mutilated, in the inscrip-
tion of KartSr Hormizd, in which there may be a reference to this edict of
toleration. It refers to ‘Zandighs, Jews, Shamans, Brahmans, Nazaraeans,
Christians and what other religions there are.’ Arch. Hist, of Iran, p. 101.
THE POLICY OF SHAPUR I
IV, I]
II3
with the use of foreign sources. But, in any eVent, the inclusion of
treatises of this kind among the sacred writings at Shapur’s orders
is evidence of his broadmindedness^.
After Shapur’s death in 272, the crown passed to his son
Hormizd I, who had been governor of Khorassan with the title of
Great King of the Kings of the Kushans. He died after reigning a
year. His brother Vahram I (273—276)% who abandoned Mani to
the mercy of the Mazdean clergy (p. 513), and the next King
Vahram II (276—293)% son of Vahram I, had also been governors
of Khorassan before ascending the throne of Iran. Vahram II
was at once valiant and energetic. There was again a war with
Rome, and the Emperor Carus advanced as far as Ctesiphon, but
his sudden death ended the triumphal progress of the Roman
army. None the less, a rising in the eastern parts of the Empire
drove Vahram in 283 to make peace with Rome, which gained
possession of Armenia and Mesopotamia. Hormizd, the Great
King’s brother, who was then Governor of Khorassan, sought to
create for himself an independent kingdom in the east, and had
gained the help of the Sacae, the Kushans and the Gelae. Vahram
took the field against his brother; crushed the revolt and, after
reducing Sacastene to submission, he set up as its governor his son
the future Vahram III with the title of King of the Sacae {Saghan-
shah). For the prince designed to succeed was always named
governor of whatever province was at the moment the most im-
portant and the most exposed to attack. The Sassanid Empire now
included Hyrcania, all Khorassan, perhaps Chorasmia and Sog-
diana, and Sacastene with Makuran and Turan, the countries of
the Middle Indus and its delta
Vahram III, after a reign of only four months, lost his crown in
293 in an insurrection staged by his great-uncle Narsah (Narses)%
son of Shapur 1 . In the great inscription of Paikuli Narses re-
counts in detail his triumph and the homage paid to him by the
grandees of the Empire and the vassal kings. He began a war with
Rome and drove Tiridates from Armenia (p. 132). But the war
^ These parts, as many others, of the Sassanian Avesta, which after its
completion by Shapur I and revision and final authorization under Shapur 1 1 ,
comprised 21 books or nasks, perished during the centuries that followed the
fell of the Sassanid Empire. In the eighth and ninth books of the Dinkart we
possess an epitome of the 21 nasks.
^ Volume of Plates v, 234, c. ® Ib. v, 234, d.
* So Herzfeld, Paikdi, pp. 35-51, who, by means of such inscriptions
as were known when that book was published (1924) and of coins, has con-
tributed to elucidate the rather obacure early history of the Sassanid En:q)ire.
C.A.H. xn
SASSANID PERSIA
1 14
[chap.
was not attended with success and the peace that was made in 298
restored Tiridates to his throne and cost Persia five cantons of
Lesser Armenia.
Narses died in 302. The reign of his son, Hormizd IT (302-
309) passed without great events and was followed by internal
wars which ended in the accession of Shapur II, Hormizd’s infant
son. During his minority his mother ruled jointly with the great
nobles, whose power notably increased at the expense of the royal
prerogative. But when the young king came of age, he displayed
remarkable strength and vigour and contrived to check the ambi-
tions of the feudal notables. Already well advanced in middle life,
after subduing with merciless harshness the rebellious Arab tribes,
he began in 356 the war of revenge upon Rome.
II. ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE
SASSANIAN STATE
Sassanian society was marked by the feudal structure which it
inherited from the preceding period®. Four classes were distin-
guished: the (asravan)^ the warriors {arteshtaran), the
bureaucrats {dibheran, the secretaries) and the commons (vdstr-
ydshan, the peasants, and hulukhshdn, the artisans or workmen).
The three first classes formed the aristocracy, which was very
firmly marked off from the plebeians. But this division was in
theory rather than in fact. The inscription of Shapur I at Hajiabad
gives the names of the four classes of the Sassanian high society.
The most exalted of these was that of the shahrddrs, which, in all
probability, comprised the vassal kings of foreign origin and the
governors who belonged to the royal family and bore the title of
shah. The chiefs of the great feudal houses formed the second
class, that of the vdspuhrs. Seven families enjoyed peculiar privi-
leges. The first of these was that of the Sassanids®. Certain high
offices, military and civil, were hereditary in these houses, but
little is known of the true character of these offices. The dignity of
hargohadh ^ belonged by right of birth to the family of the Sassanids.
Volume of Plates v, 234,/. ® See Vol. xi, pp. 120 sqq.
® Among the others are known the Karan Pahlav, the Ssrin Pahlav, the
Jsp 3 hbadh Pahlav, the Spendiyadh and the Mihran, Karan (written k.a.r.n.
or k.a.r.n.i.), not Kar 5 n, is the form attested by the inscriptionsj Pahlav
signifies ‘Parthian.’ A considerable number of eminent families and of
names of individual vaspuhrs are found in the inscription of the ‘Ka‘ba of
Zoroaster.’
* Pronounced argnhadh. This title, like so many others, is inherited from
the Parthian State. A relief of a certa.in ‘ Vorod, the argabad’ has been found
at Palmyra. See H. Ingholt, ‘Inscriptions and Sculptures from Palmyra i’,
HI, 1936, p. 93.
IV, n] THE STRUCTURE OF SASSANIAN SOCIETY 115
The third class, the vuzurgan, ' Great Ones,’ comprised the
Ministers and other heads of the Administration, and the fourth,
the azddhan, ‘the Free Men,’ the lesser nobility, which, scattered
through all the Empire, acted largely as inferior functionaries in
provincial government. The military aristocracy being also a
civilian aristocracy, the vdspuhrs were often also members of the
class of the vuzurgdn<
Little is known with precision about this complicated hierarchy.
The gradation of society showed itself at every turn, in clothing,
the form of the headdress, personal ornaments (rings, girdles,
diadems) and in the horses they rode. There were titles of honour,
as for example those which gave the name of the king in whose
service the bearer of the title had distinguished himself-. The wife
of a shah was bdnbishn, the title Meshdn-bdnbishn of Mesene)
corresponding to Meshdn-shah. The consort of the King of Kings
was named C^een of Queens (p. no).
The inscriptions, especially those previously mentioned, give a
large number of titles of high State functionaries. The Chief
Minister still had the old title of hazdrobadh^. The ‘Chief of the
Husbandmen ’ (yastryoshdn [or vdsrdshan\ -sardar) was Minister of
Finance, the spahbadh was General of the Army, the dibherobadh
Chief of the Secretaries®, the handarzbadh was something like a
Minister of Public Instruction. The karter^ was beyond doubt one
of the most exalted dignitaries but his functions cannot be defined.
The title of ganzobar ‘ treasurer ’ has recently been discovered in an
inscription®; hitherto this title had not been known in Pahlavi
texts. The mdbadhdn niobadh was the supreme head of the
Mazdean Church. He controlled the priestly dignitaries, the
mobadhs and the great body of the inferior Magi (mogh'). The
superior of all the fire-temple priests (ehrbadhs) had the title of
ehrbadhdn ehrbadh. Other high functionaries of the Church were
the dasivar and the vardabadh, the ‘Master of Observances®.’
Some titles of court-officials are also known, such as those of the
‘Chief of the Court,’ the ‘Chief Huntsman’ and the ‘Chief of the
^ Thus the inscriptions (Paik. and Kb 2 ) give several Tahm-Shakpuhr, a
Shahpuhr-shnum and a Nokhv-Hormizd (tahm — ‘strong’; shnum ‘joy’;
nokhv ‘first’).
^ Old Persian hazarapati, Greek y/i'Kiap'gpii.
® The Secretaries (dibher) were a very important element in the adminis-
tration, They drafted and registered the royal edicts, conducted the State
correspondence and were experts in diplomacy,
* See Herzfeld, Paiktdi, Glossary No. 558. The word is also found in
KiZl. 33. 6 KiZl. 33.
® This title is found in KbZ U 3JS. ,
ii6 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
Servitors^.’ A curious title is that of the ‘sword-wielder’ {shaf-
sheraz)"^.
In the Parthian period there was a division of the Empire into
four toparehies, those of the north, south, east and west®. This is
found again in the latest phases of the Sassanian period, the top-
archs being then designated by the name of marzban (the great
with the title of shah), later by the name oi fadhghos-pan.
It may be assumed that the four-fold division of the Empire also
existed in the first phase of Sassanian history, but we possess no
definite information about it. The title of marzban is not found in
the inscriptions of this period, and the existence of the title of
pddhghSsfdn in the inscription of Paikuli is not certain^. Most
probably the four toparchs, during the reigns of the earliest
Sassanid Kings as in the age that preceded them, were called
bidhakhsh^.
In the two inscriptions referred to above® there are also found
the titles of a number of vassal kings and governors of royal blood
which are made up of the name of the people or province and the
word shah {Armenan-shah, Marv-shah, Kermdn-shdh, Saghdn-shah,
etc.), and then certain analogous titles ending in -khvadhdy
(‘ Master’). The latter inscription gives a series of titles of satraps
(shatrap) who governed a city with the district round it, such as
the satraps of Hamadan, of Gadh or Ispahan and of Nayriz’’.
A little later, under Shapur II, the word bidhakhsh was used to
designate all the governors of the great provinces®, and finally,
from about the beginning of the fifth century, this title was re-
placed by that of marzban. Several other titles of administrative
officials for the provinces are found in the inscriptions of the third
century: for example, a Saghastan-handarzbadh, ‘Director of
Education in Sacastene,’ and a shatrpav-dmdrkdr, ‘Superintendent
^ Darhadh, nakhchirhadh, parastaghbadh.
^ Found, like the preceding titles, in the KbZ.
® Despite the observations of M. Pagliaro in the Rivista degli studi
orientali, xii, 1929, p. 160 sq. the present writer is inclined to believe that
the title of the toparchs, in that period, was bidhakhsh {bdeashkh among the
Armenians, who had borrowed their administrative system from the Parthians) .
^ Herzfeld, Paikuli, Glossary no. 798.
® In the inscription of Paikuli (ib. Glossary nos. 214 and 780-1) the
bidhakhsh is named after the hargobadh and the chief of the Sassanid clan and
before the hazarobadh-, the KbZ gives the names of a bidhakhsh and a bidh-
akhshSn, in both instances immediately before the name of a hazarobadh.
e Paik. and KbZ.
AhmadSn-shatrap, GadhS-shatrap, Nagrlch-shatrap.
® See the list of ‘vitaxes’ in Ammiaii. Marc, xxra, 6, 14.
IV, m] OFFICIALS, VASSAL KINGS, GOVERNORS 117
of accounts to the satrap.’ As to the internal administration of the
cities during the period in question we are completely without
information, though a ’oazarhadh^ ‘head of the bazaar,’ a high
police official, is mentioned in an inscription^.
III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
The Avesta glorifies agriculture as the best form of livelihood:
by working the land man assures himself of all kinds of divine
rewards. But though agriculture always enjoyed high esteem,
though good kings and good governors always paid attention to.
the irrigation system, upon which the cultivation of a land as arid
as Iran primarily depends, the lot of the peasant, under the feudal
system, was not enviable. He was tied to the soil, bound to furnish
statutory labour, and to serve as a foot-soldier in war; in addition
he was liable both to a personal tax and to a land tax. The personal
tax was fixed at a yearly sum, which was divided out among the
taxpayers by the authorities : the land tax, before the fiscal reform
of the sixth century, was so arranged that after an assessment of
the harvest each canton had to pay from a sixth to a third, accord-
ing to the fertility of the soil. The lot of the city-dwellers was more
pleasant: they had to pay the personal tax, but were probably
relieved of military service, and they controlled commerce and
other profitable professions.
Ctesiphon, the capital of the Empire, was an aggregate of two
large fortified cities on the east and west of the Tigris, Ctesiphon
proper, and Seleuceia, which had been destroyed by Avidius
Cassius in a.d. i 65 and was rebuilt by Ardashir I under the name
of Veh-Ardashir. This double town lay outside Iranian territory
proper, and its populace was a mixture of differing races, but it
held a central position in international commerce. At Ctesiphon
caravans coming from the west through Edessa and Nisibis (for
the route through Palmyra and Doura was given up after the fall
of the Palmyrene kingdom) could meet caravans that had come
from India by the Cabul Valley, or from China along the Tarim
basin, and then through Turkestan, Khorassan, Rai (Rhagae) and
Hamadan (see above, p. 98), Other great routes linked Ra'i with
the Caspian provinces, and Hamadan with Susiana and the Persian
Gulf, crossing the kingdom of Persis. One provision in a treaty
that Diocletian offered the Persians in 298 (p. 336), which would
have restricted communication between Persia and Rome to
Nisibis only, was firmly rejected by Narses. In Iran the Chinese
, , . . 1 ." '
^ KbZ'LlA^
ii8 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
bought Babylonian carpets, precious stones from Syria, Iranian
rouge for the eyebrows, and textiles from Syria and Egypt; their
principal export was silk, above all raw silk, which the Iranians
re-exported, sometimes in the raw, sometimes after working it up.
The sea-borne commerce of the Persians was concentrated mainly
on the old harbours and those new ports recently constructed by
Ardashir I within the Persian Gulf, at Mesene and at Charax;
here the Arab population made splendid sailors.
Among the industries of the Persian Empire the making of
textiles reached a high pitch of perfection. The Sassanid kings,
like their Persian and Parthian predecessors, spared no pains to
create new industries, for which they could call on the technical
knowledge of their prisoners of war. Thus Shapur I exploited to
the full the engineering skill of the Romans by making the
prisoners from Valerian’s army build the great dam at Shoshtar,
a fine piece of construction that has survived to this day.
IV. THE STATE-RELIGION AND FOREIGN RELIGIONS
The Gathas, that is the metrical preaching of Zoroaster, ex-
pound the doctrines of the prophet in their original purity. The
more recent parts of the Avesta, where older deities, rejected or
ignored by Zoroaster, make a re-appearance, represent a com-
promise between Zoroastrianism and popular belief. In the last
centuries before Christ two different systems of Mazdeism had
sprung into being : one sect regarded Space, the other Time, as the
original Principle, which produced the Good and the Bad Spirit
(Ormuzd and Ahriman)^. Of these rival systems the second,
‘Zervanism’ {%ervan=- Time), was ultimately triumphant, and
‘ Vayism ’ {vayu — Space) has only left faint traces in the tradition.
The Zervanist teaching, popularized in a creation-story in which
first Ahriman and then Ormuzd were born from the bosom of the
primordial god, Zervan (or according to other accounts, of his
wife), in time prevailed completely, and this view breaks through in
Mithraism as later in Manichaeism ; indeed, the official Mazdeism
of the Sassanid era is frankly Zervanist. But the Parsees after the
fall of the Sassanids gave up Zervanism: the cosmogony myths of
the Sassanid Avesta have disappeared, and the Pahlavi religious
books have been so recast and edited that but few traces of
Zervanism survive.
But it is not only the Zervanist view which differentiates
Sassanid Mazdeism from medieval and modern Parseeism. Occa-
1 Eudemus Rhodius (Damascius, de primis prmdpiis, ed. Ruelle r, p. 322).
IV, IV] TRADE, STATE RELIGION 119
sional hints dropped by foreign writers — Armenian, Syrian, or
Byzantine — which are confirmed here and there by survivals of
the native tradition, reveal the religious beliefs of the Sassanids
in an unexpected guise. True that Ormuzd was always revered
as the divine head of all good creatures, and those peculiarly
Zoroastrian abstract deities, the Amesha-Sfenta {Amahrsfand in
Pahlavi), as his chief helpers. But sacerdotal lore was particularly
busy with such deities as M/Ar (Mithra), originally a god of the
morning light, who became a sun-god, Adhur^ god of fire, Den
Mazdayasn, ‘Mazdean Faith’ personified (also called Bedukhf,
‘Daughter of God’)— and these three deities formed, together
with Ormuzd, a tetrad of creative powers. Or by associating the
primordial god, Zervan, with these four, a man had five supreme
deities to worship. TYie magi apparently even took over some gods
and goddesses who were not originally Iranian: Ndnd or Nanai
(who was identified, probably, with the ancient Anahid).^
BelzndNablw.
Finally, Sassanid Mazdeism included some features which
clashed curiously with the original spirit of Zoroastrianism, and
which were undoubtedly due to the pessimistic mentality which
dominated Western Asia during the first centuries of our era.
According to the Zervanist view, Ahriman, the elder of the twins,
held by right, from the very beginning, control of the world, and
so the life of the universe, which is to last in all for 9000 years
(after a preliminary stage of 3000 years), is filled throughout by a
fight between the two Spirits, though it is true that the fight is to
end in the victory of Ormuzd. Another Zervanist myth told how
woman fell because Ahriman seduced her, and how in consequence
she became his natural ally^.
Fire-worship is one of the elements of the ancient Aryan religion
to which the magi gave new life. There were house-fires, village-
fires, and provincial-fires. The most sacred of all were the Farr-
bagh or Priest’s fire, the Gushnasf or Warrior’s fire, and the
Burzen Mihr or Farmer’s fire. The exact position of the first is still
disputed^. Gushnasp had his temple at Ganzak in Azerbaijan; it
was the fire of the Kings too. The temple of Burzen Mihr rose
1 The most recent researches on the ideas and doctrines of Sassanid
Mazdeism are: H. S. Nyberg, youm. Amt, 1931, li, pp. i sqq. and 193 sqq. ;
E. Benveniste, Monde Orient. 1932, pp. lyo sqq.', Christensen, Ulran
sous les Sassanides, pp. 136—54, and Nyberg, Irons fomtida religioner (1937).
^ See A. V. Williams Jackson, J.A.O.S.i 1921, pp. 81 sqq.‘, E. Herz&d,
Arch. Mitt, aus Iran, i, pp. 182 sqq.', A. Pagiiaro, Orient. Stud, in Honour of
C. E. Pavry, p. 383.
120 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
amid the mountains of Revan, to the north-west of Nishapur; the
name (meaning ‘Mithra the Lofty’) betrays a close connection
with Mithra, just as the common name for the provincial fires,
‘ Vahram-fires,’ shows that these fires were dedicated to the god of
the victorious assault and of war, Vahram (Vrthraghnd). The present
writer inclines to the view that the Gushnasp fire had special con-
nections with Ormuzd — for in the rock sculptures it is Ormuzd
who invests the king with power— and the Farrbagh fire with the
Den Mazdayasn.
Sassan, the grandfather of Ardashir I, was, as has been ob-
served (p. 109), the head of the temple of Anahita at Stakhr. It
was a temple towards which the Sassanid family showed great
devotion throughout, and it has recently^ been identified with the
'Ka‘ba of Zoroaster,’ an Achaemenid building, at the foot of
which has been discovered a long Pahlavi inscription, telling of
the institution of fires for the souls of princes and of other great
personages^.
Both the Arsacid and the Sassanid fire-temples conform to one
type: a square building, surmounted by a cupola, within which the
sacred fire was kept burning upon an altar in a room that remained
completely dark, so that it could not be touched by the light of the
sun®. Excavations carried out by the French at Shapur in 1935—
1936 have brought to light the ruins of a fire-temple, which dates
probably from the first century of the Sassanian era. It is a square
building with an external vaulted corridor: four bull-headed cor-
bels, two of which still survive upon the north-east wall, most
of which is preserved, appear to have acted as supports for the
roof-beams. Inside, a square flagstone was perhaps the base for
the fire-altar A
From the pictures given on the reverse of Sassanian coins we
can recognize the different types of the fire-altar. On those of
Ardashir I is depicted a fire burning upon a tripod, which stands
upon a column ®. Coins of later kings show us the altar, in the form
of a column and without tripod, flanked by two men holding in
their hands some rod-like object. Running round the coin is
frequently found the legend ‘ Fire of . , . followed by the name of
the king who issued it. Upon the votive monument of Shapur I,
^ By M. Sprengling.
® See the Bibliography to this chapter, I, b.
® Herzfeld, Arch. Hist, of Iran, pp. 88 sqq.
* Volume of Plates V, 140, «. See G. Salles and R. Ghirshman, Rev.des
arts asiat. X, 1936, pp. 117 sqq,
® Volume of Plates v, 234, a.
IV, IV] FIRE-TEMPLES, FOREIGN RELIGIONS 121
discovered not far from the above-mentioned temple, the words
‘fire of Ardashir’ and ‘fire of Shapur’ give the date of the corona-
tion of these two kings. From this the present writer draws the
conclusion that the fire shown upon the coins is the one that the
king consecrated at the ceremony of his coronation, to be the
symbolic protector of his reign^.
Each of these great temples and of the fires of Vahram, which
were established in the provinces, had a considerable body of
priests under the direction of a ‘'nMadh'’ or of a ''fmghdn mgV
(‘ Magus of the magi ’) to serve it. ''Ehrbadhs' kept watch over the
ceremonies of divine worship, assisted by lower clergy, each of
whom had his special task.
In addition there were several foreign religious communities in
the Sassanid Empire. Jews were numerous, above all in the cities
of Mesopotamia and of Babylonia, particularly at Seleuceia-
Ctesiphon; here dwelt their civil and religious head, the Resh
Gdluta, whose election had to be confirmed by the Great King. At
Doura graffiti and some short inscriptions in Sassanian Pahlavi
have been found in the ruins of a synagogue^. Even in the purely
Iranian territory there existed Jewish colonies in the cities.
Christianity first began to spread in Western Iran towards the
end of the Arsacid era, thanks to the zeal of the missionaries of
Edessa^ East of the Tigris there was a bishopric of Arbela. Then
later the transplantation of prisoners of war, in obedience to the
orders of Shapur I and of his successors, helped towards the propa-
gation of Christianity even in the more distant provinces. Bishop-
rics were created, and in spite of internal dissensions a Christian
Church, with Syriac for its language, was gradually- organized in
Iran under the primacy of the Bishop of Seleuceia-Ctesiphon (the
katholikos). In Armenia King Tiridates introduced Christianity
towards the close of the third century.
In the eastern regions of the empire Buddhism claimed many
followers. Paintings, which recall the style of the reliefs of the
time of Shapur I, discovered in the niches of the colossal statues of
Buddha at Bamiyan, to the east of Cabul^, and coins issued by ‘the
worshipper of Mazdah,’ the famous Kiishanshah Peroz (brother
of Shapur I), figuring the image of Buddha, bear striking testi-
mony to a peaceful rapprochement between the two religions.
Apart from this the Mazdean clergy were somewhat disdainful
^ See the Bibliography to this chapter, I, e.
2 A. Pagliaro, Excavations at Dvr a-’EtfOrofoSt vt’'Rep. 1932— 33 » PP- 393 '^??’
® See below, p. 493.
wA3pe<belpw,sji.5ii24SMjjS8fiMS*l8ll:isi4:Si|iDS5Ss
122 - SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
in their relations with non-Mazdeans, and to a certain extent in-
tolerant, especially towards dangerous innovators such as the
Manichaeans^. But the adherents of foreign religions were able to
live in peace, their organizations and their religious laws were
respected, so long as they did not set themselves up against the
authority of the State or conspire with its enemies. It was political
reasons more than religious intolerance that brought about the
first great persecution of the Christians under Shapur II.
V. THE ARTS
Practically nothing is known of any literary activity during the
first century of the Sassanian era. The only fact that demands
notice is the reshaping and editing of the which has
already been mentioned (see above, p. ria).
In architecture, the ancient Sassanid palaces preserved the
arrangement of the rooms practically as it had been under the
Achaemenids. But the exterior of the buildings was entirely
altered. The essential features of this new architecture have been
briefly summarized thus^: ‘The pillared halls, with a flat roof,
were henceforth and for ever replaced by vaulted and domed
rooms. The Sassanids transformed the square and octagon in
their rooms into the round and the cupola by introducing for this
purpose in the four corners pendentives, angle-brackets which are
equally adapted to the square and to the dome. This profound
talent for construction enabled them to create new proportions :
the great hall at Ctesiphon has a diameter of nearly eighty feet.’
There still exist considerable remains of two large palaces,
which allow us to form some idea of this third-century architec-
ture; one, the palace at Firuzabad (Ardashir-Khvarreh), south of
Stakhr, built by Ardashir I, the other the palace at Ctesiphon, now
called the Taq-e-Kesra, which Herzfeld regards as the work of
Shapur P. The outer walls of Firuzabad were windowless, but
furnished with blind arcading and loft7 attached columns. At
Taq the north wing collapsed in 1888 ; in the centre of the fafade
of this was a lofty arch that opened on to a huge elliptical vault
extending over the whole depth of the building, which formed the
hall of audience^; here, too, the outer wall was windowless, but
ornamented with niches, attached columns, and blind arcading in
four storeys. Herzfeld regards this as an imitation of a Roman
1 See below, pp. 504 sqq.
® See L. Morgenstern, EsthStiques d’Orient et d’Occldent, p. 91.
® See Herzfeld, Jrch. Hist, cf Iran, p. 94.
^ Volume of Plates V, 140,
ARCHITECTURE
IV, V]
IZ3
theatre. None the less, this colossal ruin, rising in the midst of the
desert, produces an overwhelming effect.
The rock-hewn sculptures of the first Sassanid kings usually
represent the investiture of the king by Ormuzd or depict scenes
of triumph or battle. The arrangement of the figures is formal.
Some reliefs have an accompanying inscription: in others the
shape of the crown affords us a means of identifying the king,
since each king had a crown peculiar to him, and the shape of these
crowns is known from coins. The king's hair falls in regular
ringlets and the end of the beard is knotted into a ring; behind his
head pleated ribbons float out; he usually wears a necklace, ear-
rings and other ornaments. If he is on horseback the harness of
the royal mount is furnished with various ornaments, and a large
pear-shaped ball, attached to the horse’s flanks by chains, hangs
loosely down.
In most of these investiture reliefs Ormuzd is seen, in archaic
dress, a mural crown on his head, stretching out to the king the
ribboned ring, symbol of royal power. Ardashir I has left two
such reliefs; one, in a poor state of preservation, at Naqsh-e-
Rajab, where both god and king are on foot; in the second, at
Naqsh-e-Rostam^, they are both on horseback the same attitude
is found in the relief of Shapur I at Naqsh-e-Rajab and that of
Vahram I on the rock of Shapur® — one of the finest works of art
of this whole period. On the relief of Narses at Naqsh-e-Rostam,
the king and the goddess Anahita, who is bestowing the royal ring
on him, are both on foot^.
The triumph of Shapur I over Valerian is depicted no less than
five times, at Naqsh-e-Rostam and at Shapur®. In the rock-hewn
carvings at Shapur, the chief scene, common to all these reliefs,
showing the Roman Emperor throwing himself on his knees before
the Great King on horseback, forms the centre of a vast composi-
tion in which Persian soldiers and Roman prisoners are depicted
in several ranks one above the other. The workmanship of these
1 The cliffs of Naqsh-e-Rajab and of Naqsh-e-Rostam are in the neigh-
bourhood of Stakhr and Persepolis; those of Shapur more to the south-west,
near Kazerun.
® See Sarre and Herzfeld, Iranhche Felsrdiefs, Pis. I2 and 5; Volume of
Plates, V, 142, a.
® Felsreltefs, pis. 13 and 41. It should be observed that the relief of
Vahram I has an inscription of Narses, who annexed this monument for
himself: Herzfeld, Faikuli p. i73ASee Volume of Plates v, 142, b.
* Felsreltefs, pi. 9.
® Felsreliefs, pis. 7, 44, 45 and 43; Herzfeld, Jrch. Hist, of Iran,
pp. 83-86, pi. II below and 12, above) see Volume of Plates, v, 148.
124 SAS8ANID PERSIA [chap.
carvings difFers greatly, and this difference in style proves, as has
been observed, ‘how strongly not only foreign influences but
foreign hands must have been at work in Sassanian sculpture^.’
A relief carved on the cliff at Shapur, representing the triumph
of a king (possibly Shapur I) over an Indian people^, is of great
interest because it depicts the king seated in the centre with legs
crossed, in that position of frontality which stresses the imposing
figure of the monarch®. In a relief at Naqsh-e-Rajab Shapur I is
shown on horseback, in front of a gathering of notables of the
Empire^.
Vahram II had carved on the cliff at Shapur his triumph over
some tribe (probably Arabian)®, and is perhaps the hero of a
battle-scene; here the king, on his horse, with the royal banner
flying, is shown galloping at full speed upon an enemy, whose
lance drops broken before his victorious onslaught®. A similar
scene is met earlier in a relief of Ardashir I at Firuzabad, where the
foe overthrown by the king’s lance is probably Artabanus the
Arsacid*^. At Naqsh-e-Rostam, on the right of the investiture-
scene of Ardashir I, Vahram II had himself depicted in peaceful
guise in the bosom of his family®.
The effect of these Sassanid reliefs is pictorial rather than
sculptural; they are paintings reproduced in stone. We can recog-
nize some elements of this style in wall-paintings and in Arsacid
and Sassanid at Doura® and in three discovered at
Persepolis^®. A wall-painting, partially preserved, at Dokhtar-e-
Nushirvan, to the north of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, shows us a
Sassanid prince, governor of the country, seated on his throne in a
frontal position^. Some Manichaean paintings from the caves of
Khotcho^®, and some delicate Manichaean miniatures, depicting a
concert and a group of Manichaean priests, pen in hand, seated at
^ Arch. Hist, of Iran, p. 83.
® Felsreliefs, pi. 40; Arch. Hist. pi. 12.
3 See below, p. 558. ^ Felsreliefs, pi. ii.
5 lb. pi. 42. « Ih. pi. 6.
^ Herzfeld, Arch. Hist, of Iran, pi. li, above.
® Felsreliefs, pi. 5.
® Fr. Cumont, Les Fouilles de Doura-Buropes, ir, Atlas, Paris, 1926,
pis. 98 and 99 ; M. Rostovtzeff and A. Little, ‘ La maison des fresques Mem.
de HAc, des inscriptions, xuii, 1932, pp. 167 sqq.i Rostovtzeff, Caravan
Cities, pp. 194-5, 21 1, and pL 35.
Herzfeld, Arch. Hist, of Iran, p. 80.
A. and Y. Godard and J . Hackin, Les antiquitis houddhiques de BSmiySn,
pp. 65 sqq, and pL 42.
A. von le Coq, Chotscho, Berlin, 19 1 3, with plates (esp. pi. 5).
ART
IV, V]
125
their desks, furnish us with some further ideas upon this branch of
Sassanid art^.
The French excavations at Shapur have brought to light a
hitherto unprecedented piece of work. It is a monument dedi-
cated in honour of Shapur I, and clearly carried out by Roman
workmen So far there have been uncovered the lower part of
two columns, on the shaft of one of which is a Pahlavi inscriptioii
(referred to as Sh. Shap.), two Corinthian capitals which crowned
these columns, a knee in marble (probably the remains of a statue
of Shapur, of which the inscription speaks), and the torso of a
woman, dressed in antique costume, also in marble®.
Carved and chased silver cups were a speciality of the Sassanid
Empire. Among existing examples two at least belong to the early
period of Sassanian art*. One, in the British Museum, represents
Shapur I hunting deer; the other, in the Hermitage Museum at
Leningrad, shows us Vahram I hunting wild boars®.
Society in Sassanid Iran rested on three pillars : the monarchy,
the aristocracy, the Zoroastrian clergy. These three factors worked
together or strove against each other according as the central
power was strong or weak. In this play of forces the personality
of the king was all-important. In the first century of the Sassanid
period the royal power was, during most of the time, strong enough
to unite the higher classes in a common task, which resulted in the
strengthening of the State against foreign enemies and the con-
solidation of the social structure. From the achievement of this
task the period derived its characteristic spirit and style. The
seeds of Sassanian civilization had begun to germinate in the soil
of Iran before Alexander, but hellenism continued to influence it
across the national and religious consciousness which was made
active by the first Sassanid kings. Upon this union of iranism and
hellenism was built up the imposing edifice of the Sassanian State
and society, that Empire which was a worthy antagonist of Rome
in the wars to be described in the following section.
^ See Volume of Plates v, 144, a. * Ib. 144, h.
® G. Salles and R. Ghirshman, Rev. des arts asiaf. x, 1936, pp. 1 1 7—1 29.
* Volume of Plates v, 146, a, h.
® K . Erdmann, Jahrh. der preuss. Kunstsammlungeny lyii, 1936, p. 197,
figs. I and 2.
126 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
VI. THE PERSIAN WARS WITH ROME
The rise to power of Ardashxr, the first king of the Sassanid
dynasty, and his conquest of the provinces of Parthia have
already been described. It was the extension of this power to
the west of what had been Parthia that led Persia to a clash with
Rome.
After the fall of Ctesiphon Ardashir extended his authority
over Assyria — the land on the upper Tigris, the later Mosul, for
in after years the official name of this province was Budh-Ardashir^,
But an attack on the strongly fortified desert city of Hatra was a
failure. The king, however, succeeded in reducing Greater Media
whose principal city Ecbatana-Hamadan he captured. Under the
impression produced by this success Parthia also, it would seem,
came over to his side^. A further attack on Lesser Media —
Atropatene (Azerbaijan) — and Armenia met with a resolute
resistance. The Armenian king, Chosroes P, was an Arsacid, a
near relative, though hardly blood-brother^, of the dethroned
Parthian king, Artabanus. It was with him that the sons of
Artabanus had found an asylum and support. A tetradrachm of
Artavasdes of the year 227—8 was probably minted in Atropatene
and from it we learn of the rule of one of the sons of Artabanus
in this district. Though a bas-relief of Ardashir in Salmas may
represent the homage of an Armenan-shah®, considering the
evidence derived from our other sources we have no ground for
inferring at the most more than a partial success. For the king of
Armenia reinforced by contingents from the tribes of the Cau-
casus® was able to hold up the advance of Ardashir’s armies in
Atropatene and, if we may trust the Armenian authorities, also in
Adiabene, and compelled the Persians to retreat. It is possible
that Chosroes also appealed for support to Severus Alexander,
though it is certain that at that time no help of any importance
was given him. In Rome, it is true, as reports came in from the
frontier provinces, the new situation in the East was watched
with anxiety, but it was still hoped that peace could be main-
tained. But Ardashir might reasonably suspect in the unyielding
^ E. Herzfeld, Paikuli, p. 37.
2 Dio Lxxx, 3, 2 sq. (p. 475 Boisevain).
® Cf. Baumgartner in P.W. s.v. Chosroes (3), col. 2445 and F. Justi,
Iranisches Namenbuch, p. 134 i.v. Husrawanh, no. 8.
* So the Greek Agathangelus i, 9 {F.H.G. v, 2, p. i iSa).
® Cf. Herzfeld, op. cit. p. 37.
® Cf. P. Asdourian, Die politischm Beodehungen zwischen jirmenien tend
Rom, p. 122 sq. with Von Gutschmid, Z.D.iMG. xxxi, 1877, p. 47 sq.
IV, VI] ARDASHIR’S EARLIEST ATTACKS 127
resistance of Armenia, Rome’s ally, the influence of the Roman
government; it is therefore not surprising that his next attack
was directed against the Empire itself. In 230 the Sassanid in-
vaded Mesopotamia. He besieged, though without success, the
fortress of Nisibis, while his cavalry already threatened Cappa-
docia and Syria. The watchword of the campaign was restoration
of the ancient frontiers of the Persian Empire — the frontiers
which had formerly been held under the Achaemenids, It was an
expression of that strong national feeling with which Ardashir
had inspired his followers and which, united with the conviction
that possessing the true and genuine religion they might rest
assured of the divine favour, gave alike to the King and to his
army a new enthusiasm.
In Rome men had still not realized, they had not even dreamed,
that the new master of the neighbouring Eastern Kingdom was
a man of a different mould from that of his Parthian predecessors.
Only thus is it conceivable that a reference to former victories of
Rome should be thought sufficient to drive him back to his own
land. Indeed he was the less likely to be impressed thereby since
the last engagement of the Romans under Macrinus with that
Artabanus whom Ardashir had conquered was in no wise such as
to suggest the superiority of the imperial forces (p. 50). The
Roman embassy thus returned without success. In a.d. 231,
while Severus Alexander was mobilizing his army, it would seem
that further attacks of the Persians were made on border fort-
resses^, although with no more favourable result for Ardashir than
in the preceding year. The Roman army of the East received its
marching orders, and the Emperor in person brought up con-
siderable reinforcements from the West. The troops which were
at his disposal in the East, at least as far as the legions were
concerned — to which their auxiliary regiments must be added —
can be determined from a list given by Cassius Dio^. According
to that list there were in Cappadocia the legion XV Apollinaris
with its principal garrison in Satala in Lesser Armenia and XII
Fulminata in Melitene. I and III Parthica were in Mesopotamia
at Singara and perhaps at Resaina. In Syria XVI Flavia was in
garrison at Samosata, IV Scythia probably at Zeugma. In Syria
Phoenice III Gallica was in Raphaneae. In Palestine VI Ferrata
was at Caparcotna or Legio in Galilee and X Fretensis in Jeru-
salem. In Arabia III Cyrenaica was at Bostra, and finally in
128 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
Egypt II Traiana was at Nicopolis in the neighbourhood of
Alexandria; from this last legion detachments were certainly
drawn (see p. 70). A late Armenian source (Moses of Chorenei),
in spite of its very confused statements, is thus to this extent
accurate in affirming that the Emperor had raised troops from
Egypt to the Black Sea and then adds ‘and from the desert,’ for
one may safely presume that reinforcements composed of auxiliary
troops — especially light cavalry and bowmen — drawn from
Osrhogne and Palmyra were added to those contingents from
these districts which had certainly been recruited under Septimius
Severus for the protection of the Eastern frontier. At this time
the twentieth cohort of the Palmyrenes was in garrison at Doura^,
and it may be that the defences of the town were now strength-
ened®, Indeed it is probable that the Palmyrenes were the more
ready to place their troops and their resources at the Emperor’s
disposal since through the more rigorous governmental control
within the new Persian Empire their trade connections with the
Persian Gulf were if not completely interrupted yet at least
seriously interfered with. Further, the Romans could rely upon
the co-operation of Armenia. What forces Ardashir could oppose
to the legions we cannot determine in detail; it is however certain
that for the time being the Persian army did not differ in compo-
sition or in armament from that of the Parthians (cf. vol. xi,
p. 1 1 9 jy.). But his troops had been well trained in the recent
campaigns; the King could rely upon their loyalty and they were
inspired by a new spirit.
In the winter of 231—2 the Roman headquarters were in
Antioch. But Severus Alexander was compelled to settle diffi-
culties which had arisen in his own army (see p. 69 s^.) before he
could advance with the three columns into which his forces were
divided. A renewed attempt to establish peace through negotia-
tion had failed, since Ardashir had declined to discuss terms. The
plan of campaign as laid down by the headquarters staff' included
a left wing column which was to march through Armenia, perhaps
led by Junius Palmatus, and a right wing column which was to
follow the Euphrates down to Ctesiphon, while the main army
led by the Emperor in person was to hold a middle course
through northern Mesopotamia. It remains doubtful whether the
two last mentioned armies were to advance together as far as
II, 74.
* F. Cumont, Fotalles de Doura-Europos, pp. liv, lix and 357. Cf.
M. Rostovtzeff, Tale Class. Stud, v, 1935, p. 202.
* Cumont, op. ck. p. lix.
IV, vi] THE ROMAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE 129
Palmyra, where an inscription attests the presence of the Em-
peror If this were so, the aim might have been to camouflage
the Emperor’s real intentions, as Julian on a later occasion sought
to disguise his plan of campaign^. Or should it be supposed
that Severus Alexander at the outset accompanied the right wing
column in order to persuade the enemy that it was on this line that
the main army was to attack? It is probable that the former
alternative should be adopted, for the statement that soldiers —
especially the European troops — suffered severely from ill health
caused by the climate is more easily explained on the supposition
of such a march. In this case, the Emperor’s advance must have
led by Nicephorium, not by Doura^, which will have lain upon the
route of the right wing column. Rutilius Pudens Crispinus, who
later defended Aquileia (see p. 79 jy.), will have belonged to this
column and was perhaps its leader: he is named as commanding
the legionary vexillationes in the inscription from Palmyra which
has been previously mentioned. Ardashir first marched against
Armenia and met the enemy while still in Media Atropatene. He
contrived though not without difficulty to bring the Roman
advance to a halt. Receiving information of a threatening attack
upon his capital, he left only an observation corps in Atropatene
and led his main army southwards. We do not know where he
came up with the Roman right wing column. That column
suffered a severe defeat. But the Persian losses also cannot have
been inconsiderable, for Ardashir did not pursue the Romans.
And it is further worthy of remark that later Persian tradition is
completely silent on Ardashir’s wars with Rome, perhaps because
they did not lead to any decisive result. When after this reverse
Alexander brought the campaign to an end and in the following
year left the East (see p. 70) no formal peace was, it is true,
concluded, but the position occupied by the Empire before the
war was restored. In detail we can trace the efforts which were
made to strengthen the defences of the threatened areas. The
legion III Gallica was now moved to Danaba to cover the road
leading from Damascus to Palmyra: perhaps the legion VI Ferrata
was also moved — from Palestine to Phoenice^. And if not
previously, it was assuredly at diis time that the walls of Doura
were strengthened under an order of general application directing
the further development of defensive fortifications®.
1 O.G.I.S, 640.
2 Cf. Cambridge Medieval History, l, p. 81, ;
® So Cumont, op. cti. p. lix , ’ ; i ;
* Ritterling in P.W. 5.% Legp, col. 1594. ® Herodian td,' 7, 5, ■
7 *
130 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
Ardashir’s action, we must suppose, was further determined by
conditions in the east of his empire. Although we cannot recover
the immediate reason for the shift of his interest, it is certain that
from the year 233 it is in the east that his forces are engaged (see
above, p. 109 sq.). A series of conquests confirmed his power
in these regions and increased the strength with which Ardashir
could turn against the West, and in the last year of Maximinus
Thrax (a.d. 237-8) Mesopotamia was overrun; Nisibis and
Carrhae fell. The rare coins of Ardashir which show him adorned
with a mural crown may perhaps commemorate this success^.
When word reached Rome of the loss of the two cities and of the
perilous position on the Euphrates frontier which was thus re-
vealed it is possible that Gordian III, in order to save all that
could still be preserved, once more revived the client state of
Osrhoene under Abgar X in Edessa®. For the succeeding period
we have no information. But towards the end of his reign the
first Sassanid king is said to have created his son Shapur co-regent.
A rare coin-type that represents Shapur with a helmet of which
the crest ends in an eagle’s head proves that he had been declared
the successor to the throne® and on coins of Ardashir his portrait
appears together with that of his father A Since the capture of
Hatra is ascribed in tradition both to Shapur and to Ardashir it
is reasonable to conclude that Shapur overcame the resistance of
the fortress as co-regent with his father, consequently in a.d. 241.
Towards the end of this year Ardashir died and then on 20 March
242® under favourable auspices Shapur was crowned king.
With Shapur I there had come to the throne a man who
represented even more energetically than his father and with
more resolute determination the imperialism of the New Persian
Empire. The struggle with Rome was immediately resumed.
The enthusiasm of the first onset carried the Persians far into
Syria; even Antioch was threatened®. At this time the Osrhoenian
Volume of Plates V, 234,^. A. D.Mordtmann, Z.D.Af.G, xxxiv, 1880,
p. 10 thought that these coins belonged to the latest period of the Arsacids
or to the time of the war against Severus Alexander. Cf. F. D. J. Paruck,
Sasanian Coins, p. 77.
* Cf. A. R. Bellinger, Ta/e Class. Stud, v, 1935, p. 146.
* Volume of Plates, 234, A. So Herzfeld, op. cit. p. 37. Cf. Paruck, op.
cit. p. 322, no. 97.
* Paruck, op. at. pp. 78, 315, nos. 58 sqq.
® Nbldeke, Tabari, p. 412
* M. Fluss in P.W, s.v. Sapor (I), col. 2327, 11 . 45 sqq. dates to the year
224 the siege and capture of Nisibis. That, however, is inconsistent with the
testaments of Syncellus and Zonaras, who place the capture of the city under
IV, VI] SHAPUR’S INITIAL SUCCESSES AND DEFEAT 131
kingdom of Abgar must have come to an end. In the following
year Gordian III or rather his father-in-law and Praetorian Prefect
Timesitheus (see p. 87) restored the honour of the Roman arms.
Antioch was secured, Carrhae recovered, while a decisive victory
at Resaina opened up the way to Nisibis which once more
became Roman. But at this time Timesitheus died (before
October 243)1. The ambition of his successor in the Praetorian
Prefecture, Philip the Arabian, led in the end to the fall of Gordian
and to the termination of the campaign which had opened with
such success. Philip, now emperor, concluded a treaty of peace
with Shapur I ; which secured to the Roman Empire its former
frontiers. There was no talk of a cession of Mesopotamia and
Armenia (which must here mean Armenia Minor), though this
is asserted in a late source. The Armenian kingdom cannot have
been expressly surrendered under the terms of the treaty, although
in the further course of events the condition of the Roman Empire
hindered any consistent support of the Armenians. This fact
naturally caused them to think that they had been sacrificed and
the Roman failure to render them effective assistance was the
more bitter since the Armenians up to a.d. 243 had loyally ful-
filled their duties as allies of Rome. For we must conclude from
Agathangelus that Chosroes I had intervened with success in the
war under Gordian: according to Agathangelus^, indeed, the
Armenian king after a victory against Persia continued the war
for another ten years until he was dethroned.
It would further appear that quite apart from the defeats which
he had suffered Shapur needed peace for other reasons. According
to the Chronicle of Arbela® Shapur was forced to fight with the
Chorasmians and then with the Medians of the mountains. The
chronicler, it is true, is in error when he dates these operations to
the first year of Shapur’s rule; but from his account we may
conclude that they fall early in the King’s long reign. After his
victory Shapur could maintain a firm hold upon Atropatene and
Maximinus Thrax, and fails to recognize the significance of Tabari’s dating,
whose account (Noldeke, op. ciu pp. 31 sqq^ connects this event with the
victories of Shapur which led up to Valerian’s capture, but is once more
silent as fiir as the initial successes and the setbacks are concerned.
1 O.G.l.S. 640 already names Philip as Praetorian Prefect in the year 554
of the Seleucid Era (October 242-October 243).
2 n, 12 (F.H.G. V, 2 p. ii8a), where indeed the chronology is not
distinctly marked, but it is dear that the Persian king is Shapur.
3 Ch. 8 in E. Sachau, Berl. Jhh. Nr. 6, p. 64; cf. Christemen,'
L'Iran. .., p. 2i4 and above, p i ii, fora different dating of these operations.
SASSANID PERSIA
132
[chap.
the districts which lay to the north-east and to the east. Thus
the way was opened for operations against Armenia. At first
Shapur was content to seek to remove Chosroes, whose courage
and energy had created difficulties in the past and were still to be
feared in the future. In this he was successful and Ghosroes was
murdered. Tiridates, a minor, succeeded his dead father as king
of Armenia shortly before a.d. 25a. For in this year a Persian
army appeared in Armenia and compelled Tiridates to take flight
into Roman territory : in this expulsion relatives of the young
king were implicated. Whether one of these was Artavasdes, king
of the Armenians, who is mentioned in ihe Historia Augusta^ ,
cannot be determined, but it is certain that this king owed his
throne to Shapur’s favour. The attempt® to see in this Artavasdes
the saviour of Tiridates who bore the same name, and therefore
to regard him not as king but as regent is unsatisfactory, since
Artavasdes could hardly have been permitted to play such a part
under Persian supremacy.
The loss of Armenia meant for Rome the collapse of the one
bulwark of the Empire’s eastern defences. The Persian king had
in any future war with Rome secured his right flank, which had
hitherto always been threatened. And it would seem that forth-
with in the same year Shapur attacked Mesopotamia and thus
once more created a grave danger for the Empire. According to
Tabari®, he appeared before Nisibis “after the course of eleven
regnal years”, which would bring us to a.d. 252; and when a
Syriac source^ mentions an attack on Syria and Cappadocia under
the year 563 of the Seleucid Era, i.e. a.d. 251/2, this would,
despite the anticipation of later events, point to the year 252 as
the date of the resumption of the war with Rome. But the king
was forced to raise the siege of Nisibis before any success had been
won. New disturbances had broken out in the east of his empire.
In this time probably fell the war against the ‘Turian king’
Pahlezagh® mentioned above (p. 1 1 1). The next attack on Nisibis
which ended in the capture of the town may thus be dated to
A.D. 254. To what extent Shapur may have in this year followed
up his success it is difficult to say, for our scanty sources for the
most part give us only the general course of this new war without
any details of its separate phases and without any certain chrono-
^ S.H.A. Trig. tyr. 3, I.
* Made by Asdourian, op. cit. p. 1 28.
* Nsideke, of. cit. p. 31,
* Land, Anted. Syr. i, p. 18.
, ® Christensen, op. cit- p. 214 Cf. Herzfeld, op. cit. p. 41.
IV, VI] NEW INVASIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 1 33
logical indications. Perhaps if one uses with caution a passage in
the Chronicle of Malalas^ it may be suggested that at this time or
in the following year Persian squadrons in their further advance
were beaten back before Emesa. Here the usurper Uranius
Antoninus (p. 92 had maintained his position as Roman
emperor ; and from the dating of the coinage he would seem to
have held out until the year 565 of the Seleucid Era, i.e. until
A.D. 253/4. It is thus to his efforts that this partial Roman
success must be attributed. But his rule must have been brought
to an end in the storms of the following years. His final overthrow
should perhaps be connected with the intervention of Valerian:
the reports from the East had become so threatening that the
Emperor decided to take action in person. But we must assume
that now in accordance with Persian military usage the attacks
upon the Roman eastern provinces were made continuously every
year and thus gave to Shapur the opportunity to enlarge his
father’s title of Shahanshah t Eran (King of Kings of Iran), which
he too always bears on his coinage, to that of Shahanshah t Eran
u An^an (King of Kings of Iran and Non-Iran) which he employs
on his inscriptions^ (p. 1 r i).
Previous attempts to understand with closer accuracy the situa-
tion in the Roman East before the arrival of Valerian are based
upon a passage in Zosimus, which places the capture of Antioch
before Valerian’s arrival, and further they rely for the time of
the city’s capture on a year-date of the Antiochene Era preserved
in Malalas®. But Zosimus in this passage* is clearly giving an
anticipatory survey of all the losses suffered by the Empire
through the weakness of Roman emperors up to the capture of
the Syrian capital, while the year-date as given in the text of
Malalas cannot be retained. Consequently the tradition must be
followed which speaks of Persian successes before the intervention
^ Malalas, xii, p. 296, 1 2 sqq. (ed. Bonn). Cf. A. Schenk Graf von Stauffen-
berg, Die romische Kaisergeschichte bet Malalas, 'yj'X sq.
® Christensen, op. cit. p. 215.
® Malalas, XII, p. 296,9 (ed. Bonn; i, 391, n. i, ed. Oxford), where theSrt'
of the MSS. is corrected into rtS'. Since, however, the 314th year of the
Antiochene Era would bring us to a,d. 265—6 C. Muller in F.H.G. iv, 192
emended to tS' and in this he is followed by A. Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
{op. cit. p. 366, n. 89) reading W. This would give a.d. 255/6. But if we
see in the S a misunderstanding of an original Z, the sign for ‘year’, we
might rather emend the text to tZ and this 310th year would then correspond
to A.D. 261/2, which at least agrees better with the account of Malalas, who
also places the fall of Antioch after the capture of the Emperor. ^ ' '
134 - SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
of Valerian, yet does not place the fall of the city of Antioch until
after Valerian’s overthrow^. According to this tradition the
Persians spread devastation throughout Syria up to the -walls of
Antioch, while Cappadocia was likewise overrun. The leadership
in the latter campaign was in the hands of Hormizd^, the son of
Shapur, who was supported by a Roman deserter from Antioch
■with the Syrian name Mariades, i.e. Maryid'a, ‘My Lord dis-
cerns,’ a name which in half-graecized form becomes Kyriades^.
Tyana was captured at this time, and Caesarea (Mazaca) may
already have had to endure the Persian onset. By the time that
Valerian reached Antioch (probably 256) the Persians had con-
veyed the booty won in these campaigns across the Euphrates.
The fall of Doura must also be placed in this or the following
year, when the town fell after a formal siege through the under-
mining of part of the city-wall, as the excavations have proved*.
From his headquarters in Antioch in a.d. 257 the Emperor
successfully met a renewed Persian invasion. It is to this that the
coin legends Victoria Parthica^ and Restitutor Orientis^ must refer.
Valerian then summoned to his support Successianus, who had
victoriously defended the town of Pityus, far distant on the
east shore of the Black Sea, against the attacks of the Borani,
the neighbours of the Goths in the Crimea'^. Successianus was
created Praetorian Prefect. The view that the attacks of these
barbarians, which were shortly after repeated in alliance -with the
Goths, were instigated by Shapur has little probability®. They
can be adequately explained by the difficult position of the Empire
at this time of which these tribes can hardly have remained
in ignorance. Another Gothic foray into Asia Minor caused
Valerian together with his main army to march northward to
^ Georg. Syncellus, p. 715, 16 sqq. (ed. Bonn). Orac. Sibyll. xiii, 89 sqq.
and XIII, 1 19 sqq. (ed. A. Rzach). 2 ^naras xii, 23 594).
® Cf, S.H.A. Trig. tyr. 2, where an Odomastes is mentioned in whom
Noldeke (op. cit. p. 43, n. 2) recognized an Oromastes, i.e. Hormizd.
® Cf. A. Stein in P.W. s.v. Mariades, col. 1744.
* A. R. Bellinger, The Excavations at Dura-Europos, Prelim. Report of
Third Season 1929—1930, 1932, p. 163 sq.', C. Hopkins, ib. Prelim. Rep. of
Fifth Season 1931—1932, 1934, pp. 10 sqq.; R. Du Mesnil du Buisson, ib.
Prelim. Rep. of Sixth Season 1932—1933, 1936, pp. 188 sqq.; M. Rostovtzeff,
Tak Class. Stud, v, 1935, p. 202.
® P. H. Webb in M.-^. v, i, p. 104, no. 453; cf. p. 33.
® Ih. p. 60, nos. 286—7; P* 44^5 P- 33 -
Cf L. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Stamme, i®: Die Ostgermanen,
pp. 210, 212 jy.
® Asdourian, op. cit. p. 128.
IV, VI] THE BREAKDOWN OF VALERIAN’S DEFENSIVE 135
repel the invaders. But he got no farther than Cappadocia. A
plague decimated his army and reduced its military efficiency.
After the departure of the troops a new Persian attack had to be
met. Coins of a.d. 259 with the Victoria Parthicd^ are
evidence for a further victory of the Emperor, but whether the
victor engaged the enemy on the soil of Cappadocia or whether
he met the Persians only on his return march to Antioch, or
indeed whether these events both fall in one and the same year it
is not possible to determine.
In A.D. 260 Shapur none the less once more took the field and
encamped before Edessa which defended itself with resolution.
Finally the Emperor decided to attack the enemy. But sickness
still prevailed in his army, and the spirit of his men was depressed.
He, therefore, sought to negotiate and to induce the Persian king
to conclude peace by the offer of a large payment in money.
Shapur had, however, learned the reasons for this submission; at
first he declined the offers and then expressed his desire for a
personal interview with Valerian. The Emperor agreed: in fatal
confidence he met the Persian king and was taken prisoner. On
the fact of the capture our sources are in complete accord, but
they disagree in their accounts of the manner in which it was
effected. While Zosimus represents it as a treacherous breach of
faith on the part of Shapur, others would place it after a battle
with insufficient forces against the superior strength of the
enemy, others again — and this must certainly be false — will have
it that Valerian had fled from beleaguered Edessa to the Persian
king in face of a mutiny of his own starving soldiers^. In one way
or another, a Roman emperor had become a Persian captive. The
very foundations of the Roman world seemed shaken, and it is
no wonder that Shapur commemorated the event on rock reliefs,
which still survive (see above, p. 123). There also appears three
times on these representations another Roman whom once Shapur
even leads by the hand: he has been rightly identified® with
Kyriades (Mariades); we must therefore conclude that he was still
co-operating with the Persians at the time of Valerian’s capture.
This event is to be dated to midsummer 260, since the mint of
Alexandria issued coins of the eighth year of Valerian, which
1 M.-S. V, i, p. 39, no. 22; p. 58, no. 2625 p. 60, no. 291.
2 For references see L. Wickert in P.W. s.v. Licinius (Valerianus),
col. 492.
® F. Sarre, Die Kunst des alien Persien, p. 41 j see Volume of Plates v,
'148.
136 SASSANID PERSIA [chap.
began on 29 August 2 60^, whereas a papyrus of 29 September
260® is already dated under Macrianus and Quietus®.
With Valerian a captive, Shapur for a time had no more serious
opposition to fear. It is true that the Roman troops were united
in Samosata under the command of Macrianus, but it would seem
that the army retreated into Asia Minor. Edessa maintained its
resistance, but the way to the west was open. Shapur with the help
of Kyriades (Mariades) whom he had probably created Roman
emperor was now able by a surprise attack to gain possession
of Antioch^. (The traitor Kyriades later fell into disfavour with
Shapur and was burnt to death.) But before this, it would seem
that a part of the army under Spates® had been dispatched against
Cilicia; Tarsus and other cities were captured at this time. The
main Persian force, however, marched into Cappadocia, where
Caesarea (Mazaca) fell through treachery after a heroic defence
by Demosthenes. Meanwhile in Cilicia opposition began to be
organized through the efforts of a Roman general Callistus who is
probably to be identified with the Ballista known to us as Praetorian
Prefect under Macrianus and Quietus®. The Persian forces were
scattered, aiming at different objectives, and thus Callistus could
successfully surprise Soloi (Pompeiopolis) and win further suc-
cesses in Cilicia Trachea at Sebaste and Corycus. Shapur then led
back to Persia his army together with much booty and many
captives. But already a foe had arisen in Odenathus of Palmyra
^ J. Vogt, Die alexandrinischen Miinzen, p. 204.
® P. Oxy. XII, 1476. Cf. Wickert in P.W. loc. cit. col. 493.
® After the foregoing account was in print Professor Alfoldi kindly
informed the present writer that reasons will be given for a different
chronology in his forthcoming article in Berytus, which adduces the evidence
of a hoard of coins recently found in Northern Syria and placed at his
disposal by Professor H. M. Ingholt. If the results of this paper are
accepted, it must be supposed inter alia that Valerian came to the East as
early as a.d. 253 and that Antioch was taken three times by the Persians,
twice before and once after, the capture of the Emperor. This proposed
course of events is adopted by ProfesKir Alfoldi in the narrative of chapter vi
(pp. lyoiyy.).
^ Ammian. Marc, xxiii, 5 a 3 expressly et haec quidem Galluni
temportbm evenerunt^ therefore only after Valerian was taken prisoner.
® Malalas,xii,p. igyjigxy. (ed. Bonn). For thenamecf.F.Justi,/r£?wirA^j’
Namenhuch^ p. 308. It might perhaps be suggested that the name Spates
represents a corruption of spshhadh (c£ Christensen, op, cit. p. 125), the
title of the General of the Army (see above, p. 1 15),
® C£ Henze in P,W. s.v. Ballista (2), col 2831; A, Stein in P,W, s.v.
Fulvius (74), coL 257, IL 45 sqq.
IV, VI] SHAPUR THE VICTORIOUS 137
(cf. p. 172) who in the sequel was to rob the Persian king of the
fruits of his victory.
Whether Valerian lived long enough to see this we do not
know; the Emperor died in captivity, probably at Gundeshapur.
The statements of Christian sources with their story of a cruel and
humiliating treatment of the captive Emperor inflicted by God as
punishment for his persecution of the Christians must be accepted
with great reserve. It is more certain that Shapur settled the
Roman prisoners of war in the district of Gundeshapur and
Shoshtar and through their labour built the dam in the neigh-
bourhood of Shoshtar (p. 1 1 8) which still bears the name of the
Emperor’s Dam (Band-e-Kaisar) and thus preserves the memory
of an achievement which signified a unique victory of the East
over the West. The youthful vigour of the Sassanid Empire had
become a real danger for the East of the Empire: to repel that
danger greater forces were necessary and that at the very time
when from Rhine to Danube and to the shores of the Black Sea
the newly increased strength of the Germanic peoples was surging
against the northern frontiers, while soon within the Empire itself
there was to begin a period of revolutions which hopelessly
divided the imperial forces and wore them down in murderous
battles. But even when these domestic difficulties were overcome
the powerful pressure which was the consequence of a defensive
on two fronts was bound to strain the resources of the State and
thus considerably to increase the burdens laid upon the subject
population. That defensive on two fronts, which since the rise of
the New Persian kingdom had become a vexatious necessity, thus
exercised also upon the internal development of the Roman
Empire a manifest and permanent influence.
CHAPTER V
: V THE INVASIONS OF PEOPLES FROM THE
RHINE TO THE' BLACK SEA
THE MOVEMENTS OF THE. PEOPLES ON THE '
BLACK SEA, DANUBE AND RHINE ■
I T was not only in Europe and Asia Minor that the provinces
were swept by ever recurring waves of destructive invasion, as,
time and time again, . the barriers of the limises gave way. Africa
and Egypt, too, suffered under the plundering raids of the neigh-
bouring peoples, though, despite considerable devastation, the
damage done by these inroads was mainly of a local character.
Again, the assaults of the New Persian Empire must definitely be
counted among the barbarian invasions. Shapur. might claim to be
the heir of the great and highly-civilized empire of the Achaemenids,
but his imperialism was predatory. His savage devastations dis-
qualified him from putting himself at the head of the anti-Roman
reaction in the East; one has only to remember the case of
Mariades (p. 171). This was indeed a great piece of good fortune
for Rome. But the Persian wars have already been described;
the movements of peoples in the Danube basin must now be con-
sidered^.
Note. The excellent contemporary sources, above all Dexippus, for the
period covered by this and the following chapter are almost all lost. A com-
parison of the secondary sources shows that the more detailed Byzantine
authors (Zosimus, Zonaras, Syncellus) go back to the same sources as the
Latin, compendia of the fourth century (Aurelius Victor, the Epitome de
CaesaribuSy Eutropius, Rufius Festus and the Chronicon of Jerome; further
the lives in the Historia Augusta from Gallienus to Aurelian). The order of
events in the Byzantine authors is decisive (see, for an example, Note i
at the end of the volume). The Latin compendia have mainly been used to
check and supplement the gaps in the Byzantine writers, also the fragments
of Dexippus and Petrus Patricias, the statements of Cedrenus and other
Byzantine writers and scattered observations in Ammianus Marceliinus, and
the rest of Latin literature. The evidence of coins is most important. For
these see the bibliography, where also will be found relevant collections of
inscriptions and archaeological publications, etc. For portraits of Decius and
Gallienus see Volume of Plates, v, 186, di 196, h.
A For all details reference should be made to A. Alfoldi, Die Gotenheweg-
ungen md die Aufgabe der Provin% Dacien^ which is to appear in a volume
entitled Die Romer in tJngarn^ published by the Romisch-Germanische
Kommission of the German Ar^aeoiogicai Institute.
V, i] SARMATAE AND DACIANS 139
Of the older neighbours of Rome on the frontiers it was not the
Germans that were the most dangerous. We hear, however, under
Valerian and Gallienus, of the plundering of Pannonia by the
Quadi in concert with the Sarmatae lazyges. The Marcomanni,
too, at the beginning of the same reign (254) penetrated into
Pannonia and, finding no resistance, pushed their raid as far as
Ravenna^.
As the forces of the Empire were tied down by other military
tasks, Gallienus could only bring the Marcomanni to a halt by
ceding to them a part of Upper Pannonia— doubtless on the
frontier — while he sealed the treaty of peace by taking to himself
as secondary wife the beautiful daughter of their king. It is notable
how little is heard of the Asdingian Vandals, who, from the time
of Marcus Aurelius, had been settled in the east of Hungary. It
is likely enough that they often joined in the Gothic invasions of
the Danube provinces, but the fact is expressly recorded on one
occasion only (under Decius); later, in 270, after a raid on Pan-
nonia they suffered a hard blow from Aurelian on the bank of a
river in Pannonia. Equally secondary is the part played by the
Bastarnae, from their settlements in the delta of the Danube; they
are only mentioned quite occasionally as participants in raids,
until, under the pressure of new Germanic peoples, they were
finally settled by the Emperor Probus in Thrace.
Far more serious was the aggressive spirit of the free Dacian
peoples (that is, peoples settled outside the province of Dacia).
Disturbed by the displacements of groups of Germanic tribes
under Marcus Aurelius, they were never afterwards completely
pacified. In the reign of Commodus and at the beginning of the
third century these Dacian peoples were the really formidable
aggressors; nothing is heard as yet of the Goths and their com-
panions in migration. To these free Dacians belong, among
others, the Carpi ^ who are often heard of from the time of
Caracalla* and whose defeats were celebrated by the emperors by
^ This Italian raid as far as Ravenna is usually attributed to the Alemanni
(cf. e.g. L. Schmidt, Gesch. der deutschen Stamme, n, 3, p. 248 sq., also M.
Besnier, UEmp. rom. p. 1 80). But the compendia of the late fourth century
show the two invasions as quite distinct from one another (cf. Eutropius rs,
7; Jerome, Chron. p. 220, 24 Helm); only Orosius (vii, 22, 7) and
Jordanes {Romana, 287 m) confuse them. It may be added that Ravenna
lies on the natural continuation of the imperial road from Pannonia to
Aquileia.
2 Cf C. Putsch, P.W. s.v. Carpi, cols. 1608, 1610.
® Dio Lxxrai, 16, 7 (p. 395 Boissevain); C.I.L. m, 14416; A. von
Domaszewski, Wectd, Zeits. Korr.-BL 1900, p. 147. , j,.:
HO INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
the adoption of the title of Dacicus Maxiinus^. Maximinus, for
example, took this style as early as 236 (p. 74). In the lost
Scythka of Dexippus the Carpi played a leading part^. In the
fateful year 236 they gave the Romans their share of trouble,
but the new governor of Lower Moesia, Tullius Menophilus,
succeeded in holding them in check during his term of office (p.
84 jy.). It is to be observed, however, that despite their pre-
tensions to be stronger than the Goths, they were more lightly
esteemed by the Roman government; the Goths received annual
subsidies, while they did not. Besides Moesia, Dacia was the chief
object of their visitations; the task of curbing them was rendered
ever more difficult by the contemporary inroads of the Goths.
Philip succeeded in defeating them after extensive devastations
in 245 and the years following, but in 248 they broke out once
more (pp. 90 Jyy.). On this occasion the main stroke was de-
livered by the Goths : while they turned to the wealthier provinces
of Moesia and Thrace, the Carpi poured over unhappy Tran-
sylvania; again in 250 under Decius and once again under Gallus
and Valerian they continued restless. When Aurelian in 271
marched eastwards, their robber-bands again appeared in the
Danube provinces. The title of victory, Dacicus Maximus, borne
by Decius and Gallienus, indicates that the free Dacian peoples
were still being successfully repulsed; Aurelian himself routed
them and was honoured by the title of Carpicus Maximus (272)^,
It seems as if they were now being roughly handled by intrusive
German neighbours. To secure peace Aurelian settled large parts
of this people within the Empire south of the Danube; and, when
the residue joined with the neighbouring Bastarnae in giving
further trouble under Diocletian, they too were transferred to
Pannonia and other provinces, after Probus had already settled
great masses of Bastarnae in Thrace. It was precisely these
peoples that found the pressure of the Gothic tribes too much for
endurance.
It is clear that it was these Dacian neighbours of the Roman
province, together with the other peoples near the limes., who were
^ This title must refer to successes over free Dacians and not to victories
in Dacia; as is shown by the fact that victories over the barbarians in
Pannonia or Moesia were never marked by such titles as Pannonicus or
Moesiacus. ^ Frag. 6 0 acoby, F,G.H. ii, p. 456).
® Philip, too, was called Carpicus; it is impossible to say with certainty
whether diis title and that of Dacicus refer to the same Dacian peoples, or
whether the latter dora not rather arise from the repulse of other free Dacians,
for example, from the Bukovina.
V, I] CARPI AND GOTHS
141
first invited by the weakening of the Roman frontier defence to
undertake continuous raids for plunder; it was only by slow
degrees that this role passed to the Goths and the other Germanic
peoples, who now begin to make their appearance. The advance
of the Goths from East Germany must, it is true, have occurred
somewhat earlier, but the occupation of the rich lands of South
Russia is bound to have taken up some time, and it was only the
rumours of the booty of the Carpi and their companions that
brought the Goths to the Danube provinces.
Dexippus begins his description of the invasions of all these
peoples, whom he lumps together under the classical name of
‘Scythians,’ with the year 238^. But that was not the first time
that the Goths had entered the Roman field of vision. When the
Illyrian troops were with Severus Alexander in 231—2, fighting
the Persians, ‘Germans’ broke into the Danube provinces^. By
‘Germans’ are meant not Western Germans only, as has been
supposed; for the Goths as early as 238 were receiving annual
subsidies from Rome®, and must therefore have been already re-
sponsible for serious inroads, so that it is probably they who are
meant here. Under Maximinus Thrax the Gothic danger must
have been acute, for the great campaign, prepared by the Emperor
in the winter of 237— 8 and frustrated by his rivals, against the
German peoples ‘as far as the Ocean*,’ can only have been
aimed at them®. Perhaps it was Gothic invasions that were re-
sponsible for bringing the autonomous coinages in Moesia and
Thrace to an almost complete standstill under Maximinus®.
The plundering of Istros (not far from the mouth of the Danube)
by the Goths, reported by Dexippus, did not involve the final de-
struction of the city’; the other Greek cities of the Black Sea
1 S.H.A. Max. et Balk 16, 3.
® Herodian vi, 7, 2.
® Petrus Patricius, frag. 8 (F.H.G. iv, p. 1 86 sq.). This passage appears
to imply that subsidies had already been paid in the past. For another view-
see B. Rappaport, Die Einfdlle der Goten, p. 29 and Schmidt, op. cit. i®,
p. 204.
* Herodian vii, 2, 9. The phrase cannot refer to tribes who had long been
on the frontier.
® The fact that operations were to start from Lower Pannonia supports
this view. How far the Goths may have been included, together with the
Western Germans, under the title Germanicus Maximus of Maximinus
Thrax is not clear.
® B. Pick, Die antiken Mun%en Nordgriechenlands, i, p. 187. The con-
tinuation of the city-issues under Gordian III shows that the gap is not due
to political or economic reasons.
142 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
likewise continued to maintain themselves. The coinage of Olbia
and Tyras ceased, it is true, under Severus Alexander, and the
reason may well lie in the difficulties occasioned by the Goths,
but inscriptions both of Istros and of Olbia attest the presence of
Roman troops as late as 248 under Philip; in Olbia, traces of
Roman life have been found as late as Valerian^. But the Gothic
raid of 238 certainly did serious damage in Moesia; the sources
unfortunately fail to reveal how it ended.
How important the control of this people appeared to the
victorious senatorial party is revealed by the fact, that, to replace
Decius, the future emperor, their best general, the hero of
Aquileia (p. 79), M. Tullius Menophilus was sent as governor
to Lower Moesia; in his three years of office (238—241) some
degree of peace reigned in these lands on the frontier. The fortifi-
cations and city-walls were reconditioned, the troops were trained
to discipline (p. 85). It seems that Gordian III on his expedition
against the Persians in 242 was compelled to halt at this point to
drive bands of Goths ^ from Moesia and Thrace; and the Gothic
King Argaithus took advantage of the absence of the Emperor
in Asia to make a serious raid on the provinces adjoining the
Lower Danube®.
The tide of the Gothic oflFensive rose higher still in the Danube
lands under Philip. Its history depends solely on the confused
account in Jordanes^. He speaks of two inroads under this
emperor and his account can hardly be rejected. If Philip in 246
andatthe New Year of 248 ® is called Germanicus Maximus as well
as Carpicus Maximus, the former title may refer to the defeat of
the Goths in their first invasion®. Perhaps it was only after this
attack by the Goths that their annual subsidies were withdrawn.
Defensive works on the fortified road that, running along the river
^ Cf. M. Ebert, Siidrussland im Altertum, p. 228.
® S.H.A. Gord, tres, 26, 3—4 speaks only of ^hastes'', the Alani, ib. 34, 4
are an invention; cf. E. Stein, P.W. s.v. Julius (386) Philippus, col. 761.
® S.H.A. Gord. tres, 31, i and ad he. P. v. Rohden, P.W. s.v. Argaithus,
col. 685. The passage seems to the present writer to represent a contemporary
account and not to be a duplicate of the later activities of Argaithus (Argunt).
For another view see Rappaport, op. cit. p. 33, and Schmidt, op. cti. i®, p. 205
and above p. 86 sq. On the occasion of this raid a coin-hoard (SSpata-de-Jos)
seems to have been buried in a fort of the Wallachian limes-, cf. V. Christescu,
Itires, I, 1934, p. 72.
* Getica, XVI, 89 sqq. M.
® Cf. Rom. Mitt. X 13 X, 1934, p. 96 sq. with Must. 6.
® For a different view cf. wdimidt, op. cit. i®, p. 205 and ii, p. 244, and
above, p. 90
V, I] EARLY GOTHIC INVASIONS 143
Aluta, united Moesia to Dacia, and the fortification of Philippo-
polis in Thrace, prove that Philip did not look on helplessly while
the storm broke^.
The year 248 brought with it another exceptionally heavy
Gothic attack under Argaithus and Gunthericus^, with the assist-
ance of their companions in migration, the Taifali, who appear
now for the first time, and also in association with the Asdingian
Vandals, Carpi and Bastarnae (p. 92). It is possible that the pre-
tender, Pacatianus, was proclaimed about May 248 in Upper
Moesia®, partly in consequence of having gained some passing
success over them; but according to Jordanes the finishing off of
the war was reserved for Decius, who was sent into the Danube
lands with full powers, probably before the end of the year (p. 93).
The activities of Decius must have met with some success, as the
confidence that the Danube army reposed in him suggests; but
his success consisted rather in confirming the discipline of the
troops, in spite of desertions to the enemy, than in actually de-
feating the Goths^. The only recorded detail is that Marciano-
polis, a great city of Lower Moesia, west of Odessus (V arna), was
blockaded, but saved from worse harm by the inexperience of the
assailants in siegecraft; the terror of the inhabitants is attested by
the numerous hoards of coins that were buried on that occasion.
The departure of the Danube army for Italy in the summer of
249 brought the Goths back to Moesia, Their king, Kniva, who
led the campaign, set to work in the next year with a deliberation
that betrays at every point a strategy on the truly grand scale. The
main army, which, as it finally retired towards South Russia, must
likewise have come up from the Black Sea, nevertheless makes its
break through the Moesian limes far to the west at Oescus; the
crossing at this point implies a command of the fortified line of
the Aluta, which guarded one of the most important entrances
into Transylvania (see Map 5, facing p. 1 64). It is clear, then,
that Kniva maintained tactical contact with the hordes that broke
into Dacia — according to Lactantius, Carpi. A detachment, of
the army broke at the same moment into Lower Moesia and
pushed on as far as Philippopolis in Thrace; Kniva himself
pressed eastward against Novae and was compelled to withdraw by
Trebonianus Gallus, the governor of Lower Moesia, This, how-
ever, was no real success for Rome, for the Gothic leader had no
^ As Zosimus (i, 23, i) maintains.
® On the mythical king Ostrt^otha, c£ Schmidt, cit i®, p. 201
® See Alfbidi, Chron. 1924, p, ii.
* Jordanes, /«f. «#.} cf. GT. 2 .. nij 12351, ’ . it ; ■
144 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
thoughts of flight, but quietly turned to the interior of the pro-
vince. He moved south down the valley of the latrus and besieged
Nicopolis, where a large part of the population had taken refuge.
Meanwhile, the Emperor had his son Herennius Etruscus ap-
pointed Caesar, in order to be able to send him in advance as his
responsible representative with the detachments of the Danube
army, which had been brought into Italy to overcome Philipp.
Very soon afterwards Decius himself hastened from Rome to
Moesia, and, near Nicopolis, gained a considerable victory over
Kniva, who is said to have lost over 30,000 men. The energetic
Emperor further succeeded in clearing Dacia of the Carpi; a
Spanish inscription^ names him Dacicus Maximus as early as the
autumn of 250, and before the year was out, he was honoured in
Apulum as restitutor Daciarunfi. But the leader of the defeated
Goths was again quick to find the right move. He turned south
to unite with his second army. Decius moved after him, but was
too slow; the Goths already had the 4000 feet high plateau of the
Balkans behind them, when Decius in his turn climbed the
Shipka pass. He was hoping to be able to relieve Philippopolis in
a few days^, but was compelled after his forced march to rest his
men and horses at Beroea at the southern foot of the mountains.
Here he was taken unawares by Kniva and so completely beaten
that he could barely make his escape over the Balkans.
Decius had already had reason to fear that his Thracian troops
might mutiny®, and it was probably this rebellious spirit in the
army that led T. Julius Priscus®, the governor who was besieged
in Philippopolis, to have himself proclaimed emperor and to join
the Goths. It may be that, in return, the soldiers were promised a
safe-conduct. But this desperate step failed to save the besieged;
thousands of them were butchered at the taking of the city and
great numbers of men, including many of senatorial rank, were
taken prisoner’. Priscus disappears from history; he cannot long
have survived his treachery.
Decius fled with the remnant of his army back to the Danube
^ Wittig, P.W. s.v. Messius (9) col. 1269. The coins with Exercitus
Inlyricus, etc. do not belong to this context, cf. p. 1 66, n. 2.
^ C.l.L. ir, 4949. ® C.l.L. Ill, 1176.
* Dexippus, frag. 26, 8-10 (F.G.H. n, p. 469 s^.).
® Dexippus, frag. 26 ad init. {F.G.H. il. p, 468).
* The correct form of the name is given in the Ann. Spig. 1932, no. 28;
Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxix, 2, calls him Lucius Priscus in error.
’ The siege of Philippopolis in Dexippus, frag. 27 {F.G.H. ii, p. 470),
which ended without success, must be placed later, perhaps in 268.
V, i] THE WARS OF DECIUS 145
at OescuSj where Callus stood with his corps still intact, and pre-
pared to renew the war. It was still the summer of 250, but
Decius was so weak that for nearly a whole year, up to his tragic
death, he was not in a position to cross the mountains, but was
forced to leave the Goths to wreak their fury on Thrace. He re-
stricted himself from the first to the task of awaiting the with-
drawal of the enemy, in order to beset them on their return. Yet
he failed even to hold the Balkan passes— obviously the most ad-
vantageous course — but sent Callus to the mouth of the Danube,
m order to prevent the Goths from crossing, if they took that
route; he himself probably remained farther upstream, in order
to keep a watch on the western crossings. It must not be forgotten,
that it was scarcely possible for him to bring up troops from other
parts of the Empire; the risings of pretenders in Rome, Gaul and
the East made such a course inadvisable if not impossible.
In May 251, when Herennius Etruscus was made Augustus,
new and notable coin-types suddenly appear on the Antoniniani
of the mint of Rome^, one for Decius, the other for his elder son,
both celebrating a ‘Victoria Germanica.’ These must refer to the
Gothic war^. The victorious engagement thus celebrated can,
as things lay, only relate to battles north of the Balkan range. The
Goths chose the shortest and most convenient road to the Black
Sea and, in view of the defensive attitude of the Romans®, must
have reached the Dobrudja before it came to a battle.
The Romans had the better of the fighting, but the Goths still
retained all their booty and captives^. Kniva once again displayed
his talent for command when, a month later (June 251), the
decision fell. He succeeded in luring the Emperor, who walked
incautiously into the trap laid for him®, into a marshy place near
Abrittus (Aptaat-Kalessi) in the Dobrudja and in inflicting upon
him a decisive defeat. After Herennius Etruscus had died bravely,
Decius fought on, until he too fell on the field of honour.
The Illyrian provinces had already suffered terribly from these
invasions. There is no record of the number of cities that perished.
It is probable that Marcianopolis, for example, met its fate. On
^ On. the determination of the mint see Alfoldi’s comments in Num
KSzImy, xxxiv, 5, 1938, p. 66.
2 Hitherto misunderstood. But Wittig, col. 1269 expresses doubts
about the previous explanations,
® 2 ^simusi, 23, ij Syncellus, p. 705, 10 sqq. (Bonn).
* It is to this that Zonaras xii, 20 ^. 589) must refer.
® This is admitted by Zosimus (i, 23, 2) despite the partiality he shows for
Decius at this point. - .
146 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
this site has been found an enormous hoard of silver^, and nothing
but a general catastrophe can have made men forget such a gigantic
fortune.
But the failure of the gallant Decius had not only set his crown
on the hazard; any barrier that could hold back the barbarian
flood was now swept away. Trebonianus Callus, now proclaimed
emperor, found himself compelled, in his desperate plight, to
consent officially to the Goths’ quietly carrying off with them their
rich booty and their hosts of captives.
The history of the subsequent Gothic raids has been obscured
by the fact that the Byzantine writers have run together under
Gallus all those later incursions of these peoples that demonstrably
took place in later reigns. The reason may be that Dexippus at
this point gave in advance a comprehensive survey of the story of
raids that were now becoming a matter of course^. But we must not
infer that the Goths now kept quiet for two whole years®. On the
contrary, the superior strategy of Kniva and the booty taken, not
to speak of the acquiescence of Gallus, were only too calculated to
raise the martial spirit of the Germans to the pitch of arrogance^.
They do, indeed, appear, in return for the annual subsidies that
they exacted, to have left Moesia in peace for a time, but they
-sought compensation elsewhere. In 252® other Goths® together
with the Borani — apparently a Sarmatian people from South
Russia — the East German Burgundians’ and the Carpi broke
^ N. Mouchmoff, Le trhor numismatique de Reka Devnia, Sofia, 1934 -
® As Rappaport, op. cit. pp. 43 sqq., well suggests. Confusion of the names
‘Gallus’ and ‘Gallienus’ probably contributed to making the Byzantine
authors enter under earlier years these expeditions that really fell under
Valerian and Gallienus.
® When Orosius (vii, 23, i) and Jordanes {Ro/nana, 288 m) maintain
that the Goths continued their devastations for 15 years until 269, that is a
subsequent calculation based on the years of the reign of Gallienus, who is
made the scapegoat.
* Zosimus I, 24, I .
® The thread of the history is given by Zosimus, who returns three times
under Gallus to the Gothic inroads. In i, 26, i he gives the general, anti-
cipatory, description which has been mentioned above; in i, 27, i,with aWwi
he marks the invasion of the Goths and their comrades in the following year,
an invasion which spent its fury on the mainland, and finally, in i, 28, i, he
describes the first expedition by sea in the next year to that. The correctness
of the continuation after 253 (see Alfoldi in Berytus, iv, 1937, pp. 53 sqq.)
confirms the earlier date also.
® That it was actually a different group of Goths — perhaps, the later
Ostrogoths — that made these expeditions, cannot be strictly proved, but
appears a necessary assumption. . Cf. Schmidt, op. cit. i®, p. 130 sq.
V, I] THE GOTHS IN GREEK LANDS 147
into the European provinces, and in 253 made a first expedition
by sea to Asia Minor^, which spread fire and sword as far as
Ephesus and Pessinus. In the spring of the same year the Goths
under Kniva stirred again and demanded an increase of their sub-
sidies. But the governor of Lower Moesia, Aemilius Aemilianus,
succeeded in inducing his troops by liberal promises to undertake
a counter-attack on the Gothic territory north of the Danube;
success brought him proclamation as emperor, and death.
But this bold stroke had no lasting effects. Aemilianus was
not even able to clear Thrace of the hostile bands^. In 2 j'4 the
Goths again crossed the Danube, ‘as is their custom,’ laid waste
Thrace, and pushed on to Thessalonica, but were driven off
with heavy loss®. Greece was seized with panic; Thermopylae
and the Isthmus were fortified; the walls of Athens, which since
Sulla’s time had fallen into decay, were restored. But there
was no one able to curb the robber bands in the field. For at the
same time the Marcomanni made havoc of Pannonia, while, of
the two emperors, one had perforce to take the field against the
Germans on the Rhine, and the other was tied down in the
East. The position in Illyricum was terrible enough^. The details
cannot be followed in the authorities. The activity of the mint of
Viminacium between 253 and 257 points to some degree of order
in Upper Moesia during this period; but the transference of its
activitT’ to Cologne shows that the Rhinelands were regarded as of
more importance than the payment of the Danube troops. The
Gothic peril became so constant that the glacis of the Balkan
range was fortified in order to observe and fend off the raiders
(‘ latrunculi ’)®. The usurpations of 260, in which the desperation
of the Danube population expressed itself, only made a weak
position weaker still. But from 261 onwards there was some
relief; the undisturbed activity of the mint of Siscia points to a
re-organization beginning in 262.
Not less terrible were the sufferings of Asia Minor®. The Borani
succeeded in inducing the Roman vassal-king of Bosporus to put
his fleet at their disposal, and, even if they had little success in 254,
^ It must be assumed that the description of the Gothic expedition by sea
in 256 as ‘second invasion’ (Zosimus i, 35, 2) implies the reckoning of the
expedition of 253 as ‘first.’
^ Zonaras xii, 22 (p. 591).
® It is not known when the capture of Dyrrhachium by the Goths,
mentioned in Dexippus, frag. 3 (F.G.H. n, p. 456), took place.
* Zosimus I, 37, 3. ® CJ.X. m, 12376 (Kutlovica).
® For the chronology of these expeditions, cf. Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 57 sq.
148 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
they conquered Pityus and Trapezus in the next year; in 256
followed a great naval expedition, undertaken by their Gothic
neighbours, accompanied along the west coast of the Black Sea
by their land-army. After the garrison of Chalcedon had basely left
its post despite its superior numbers, that wealthy city fell into the
hands of the Goths and was followed by Nicomedia, Nicaea, Prusa
and other cities in the neighbourhood; the unresourceful Valerian
could do nothing to check them. The anarchy and misery that
these raids brought in their train are depicted with all the vividness
of actual experience in a pastoral letter of the Bishop of Neo-
caesarea^. And yet Valerian had the effontery to celebrate the
great event as a Victoria Germanica on his issues of Antioch in
257 — a boast as well grounded as the parallel announcement of
a Victoria Part(Jiica'f. If in the next decade no further expeditions
by sea followed, the credit must be assigned to the efforts of
Gallienus®; the reputation of Odenathus may have contributed
something to the result.
If in the years following 260 the restlessness of the East Germans
seems to some extent to have died down, new and more violent
waves broke on the Empire at the end of the reign of Gallienus,
most probably set in motion by the arrival of new bands of
Germans in South Russia and in the northern Danube-basin.
First of all, the whole of Asia Minor was swept by marauding
bands of warriors brought by sea (267)^. They were Goths, who,
making their way through the Bosporus, laid waste Chalcedon
and then plundered the rich city of Nicomedia. There was, it
appears, no one to say them nay, when they sailed through the
Hellespont and fell upon the cities of Ionia. They reduced to
ashes the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus and, on the return,
the time-honoured site of Troy. No less wide were their depreda-
tions on land; the west of Asia Minor was the first to suffer (Lydia
and Phrygia are expressly named after Bithynia) ; they then passed
on to Cappadocia and Galatia. But, when Odenathus, shortly
before his death®, advanced with his army against them as far as
Heraclea Pontica, they were already again on board, carrying
^ Migne, Pair. Graec, x, pp. 1037 Draesecke, Jahrb.f. prot.
Theol. VII, 1881, pp, 730 sqq.
^ It is to be observed that the Goths once again are called Germans.
Victoria Guttica or Gothica does not appear until under Claudius.
® On building of walls in Miletus in 263, cf. Th. Wiegand, Sitz. Ber.
Berl. Jkad. 1935, p. 205.
* On the criticism of the sources and the chronology of the next three
great invasions, see Note i at the end of the volume.
® This gives the date.
V,i] THE WARS OF GALLIENUS 149
with them a booty that included many prisoners, among whom may
have been the grandparents of Wuifila, the apostle of the Goths^.
This great success stirred up the Black Sea peoples to further
endeavours and in the next year they mustered in numbers as yet
unparalleled at the mouth of the Dniester; $00 ships, on the most
modest estimates, according to others, 2000, put to sea, and, even
if the number of 320,000 warriors for the land-army that accom-
panied the fleet along the coast is grossly exaggerated, it was
probably the strongest German army that trod the soil of the
Empire in the third century. The fleet was mainly supplied by the
sailor-folk of the Heruli, who seem to have been newcomers to
the shores of the Black Sea; the mass of the land-army was formed
by bands of Goths, but Bastarnae and fragments of other peoples
joined the expedition and spread over Thrace. Byzantium and
Chrysopolis were ravaged by the sea forces; but on the Propontis
many of their ships were wrecked, and the imperial fleet also
attacked with success. Even if an occasional enterprise mis-
carried — the invaders failed, for example, to take Tomi and
Marcianopolis — they overran all Greece as far south as Sparta,
with fire and sword, and Athens fell to their arms. Here the
imperial commander Cleodemus assailed them with his fleet, and
bands of Athenian volunteers under Dexippus, whose admirable
Scythica and Chronica, the best accounts of the history of the period,
have unfortunately been lost, inflicted on them considerable losses.
Through Boeotia, Epirus, Macedonia they made their way back,
aiming for Moesia. The unsuccessful siege of Philippopolis^ (which
is not to be confused with the siege under Decius) may have
happened at this time. It seems to have been another detachment
of the fleet that pushed through the Hellespont, repaired the ships
at Athos and besieged Cassandreia (Potidaea) and Thessalonica.
On the news of the approach of the Emperor Gallienus and his
army, this force advanced to meet him through Doberus and Pela-
gonia. The advance guard of Dalmatian cavalry cut to pieces 3000
barbarians; then the mass of the army crossed swords with the
imperial forces at Naissus. In the grim battle that followed the
Romans were at first driven back, but they were skilfully rallied
to a surprise attack on the enemy, who left 50,000 men on the
field and crowded into a fortified laager. The Herulian chieftain,
Naulobatus, who surrendered to Gallienus, was rewarded with the
consular insignia, and, perhaps, given employment with his
followers in the Roman service. The victory, however, was not
^ Schmidt, op. cit. p- 234 sq.
® Dexippus, frag. 27 (F.G.H. n, p. 470). , ; ' -
150 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
exploited to the full because Gallienus was compelled to withdraw
the greater part of his army post-haste, to defend himself against
the treachery of Aureolus. But in the meantime his general
Marcianus successfully prosecuted the operations against the
Germans. After the death of Gallienus Claudius came in person
to take up the struggle. When the Germans, dying like flies
from lack of provisions, withdrew from their laager on Mount
Gessax to Macedonia, they were twice defeated by the newly
established corps of cavalry and pursued by their opponents,
though it appears that early in 269 fresh bands of considerable
size crossed the Danube to the assistance of their compatriots.
Assailed by famine and plague, the survivors were taken prisoner
and made use of as soldiers and farmers. The Herulian fleet,
which undertook a fresh expedition in 269, likewise failed to
achieve any great success, as the cities, it appears, were well
guarded, though the countryfolk were harried far and wide.
II. THE ABANDONMENT OF DACIA
From these locust-swarms that had for so long been devouring
the Danube provinces year by year Dacia had been the worst
sufferer. Even before the Gothic storms, she had been vexed by
the free Dacians (see above), and, from her geographical position,
she was most exposed of all provinces to attack: the Transylvanian
Alps simply form one great bridgehead in advance of the Danube
front and this projecting semi-circle lacked an extended con-
nection with the limes of Moesia and Pannonia, being separated
from both provinces by the vassal-states of the Sarmatae lazyges
and Roxolani, originally created to separate the powerful kingdom
of Dacia from the Roman boundaries. After the conquest of
Trajan these buffer-states had lost their raison d'etre-, the fortified
roads and regular patrols, that crossed and controlled these strips
of land, were not calculated to hold up the drive of powerful
peoples. Marcus Aurelius had intended at least to get rid of the
gaps to the north and west of Dacia (vol. xi, pp. 350 iyy.), but
the senseless Commodus again left these inlets unstopped, and the
north of Hungary kept filling up with fresh arrivals from East
Germany, while from the east and south of Transylvania came the
heavy pressure of the Goths. The situation of the province was
rendered even more difficult by the change of strategy that aimed
at parrying hostile offensives not by the cordon on the limes, but
by a disposition of the troops in depth. Under this system such an
: advanced frontier-position as Dacia lost its strategic importance.
V, II] THE NEW STRATEGY OF DEFENCE 15 1
and stress was no longer laid on its adequate garrisoning. In the
process of concentration to the rear the Hite corps were withdrawn
from the actual frontiers and transferred to important road-
junctions in the interior, while the gaps came more and more to
be filled with barbarian or militia of inferior quality.
The ancient literary authorities declare that Dacia was lost
under Gallienus, but this simply reflects the general tendency to
make that emperor responsible for all the evils of his times, a
tendency zealously promoted by the hostile party of the Senate.
But the discussion of the movements of the Goths has already
revealed the fact that the invasions reached their zenith not under
Gallienus, as the late Roman historical compendia of the second
half of the fourth century maintain (they depend on a literary
scheme, that sketches the type of the tyrant in its progressive
degeneration), but rather in the years from Decius to the death of
Valerian, and that any state of anarchy that the fearful aftermath
of 267-269 might produce was nothing new. The evidence of
epigraphy and numismatics permits the reconstruction of some
such picture as the following.
The normal circulation of coinage was indeed seriously re-
duced from the time of Philip onwards, but it was still generally
active as late as 253. In the summer of 2 56 bronze issues for the
■provincia Dacia were still being struck at the mint of Viminacium.
The last surviving official inscriptions fall between 256 and 239.
But, where systematic excavations have been made, for example, in
Apulum, the chief stronghold of the province, it has become clear
that the provision of pay for the troops was still maintained and
had not ceased before the beginning of the reign of Aurelian.
The road from Orsova to Karansebes, uniting Moesia and Dacia,
was held, as late as Gallienus, even more firmly — as the coin-
hoards show — than the mountainous country proper; the fact is
confirmed by inscriptions of the years of his sole rule.
It has been noted (p. 94) that from the time of Philip vexilla-
tiones drawn from the frontier legions were permanently stationed
in North Italy; among them were the detachments of the two
legions of Dacia, which seem to have gone over in 268 to Pos-
tumus with other vexillationes stationed there (see, however, below,
p. 214). But the parent legions themselves were also set in motion.
Atadatesoonafter26i the commander of the Legio XIII Gemina
appears in Mehadia, at the southern gateway of Dacia — together,
it must be supposed, with his corps, which seems as early as 260
to have taken part in the revolts of Ingenuus and Regalian. Later
under Gallienus both legions are found in Southern Pannonia,
1 52 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACE SEA [chap.
where the road to Italy crosses the Drave, as a regular garrison for
Poetovio. What other troops there may have been in Transylvania,
and whether detachments of legions were among them, is un-
known. But there is first-hand evidence to prove that until the
beginning of 270 the abandonment of the province was not even
considered. Types of the very first issue of Aurelian, on the model
of Decius, represent the reliance of the Emperor on the might of
Illyricumj among them is a Dacia Felix^. Then comes a sudden,
unexpected change, necessitated by events of a novel character.
The facts are clear. Aurelian after his proclamation hastened
to Rome®, thence to fight in Pannonia, only to return to North
Italy for a severe campaign against the invading Juthungi. In the
winter of 270—1 he arranged affairs in Rome and Italy and pre-
pared for an expedition against Palmyra. On his way to the East
he first cleared the Danube lands and Thrace of marauding bands®,
then crossed to the northern bank and swiftly defeated the
Goths in a series of great battles, in the course of which the
chieftain Gannabaudes lost his life^. The importance of the victory
is underlined in what Ammianus Marcellinus says of the Goths
‘per Aurelianum, acrem virum, et sever issimum noxarum ultorem
pulsi, per longa saecula siiuerunt immobiles®.’ The victorious
Emperor, then, was complete master of the situation; how came
he to the sudden resolve to abandon Dacia (‘ desperans earn posse
retineri’).?
The explanation is to be found in the general position. Zenobia
controlled Egypt, the chief granary of the Empire. The corn-fleets
in 271 were no longer reaching Italy from Alexandria; the
decision must not be postponed, if Rome was not to go short. As
^ This first issue appears to have been planned under Quintillus (himself
an Illyrian), because the reverse Pannama appears with the same officina mark
from the same mint in the latest of his issues.
® The sequence of events in Zosimus i, 48 sq., to which the statements of
the Vita Aureliani stand in a somewhat similar relationship to that shown
in Note I at the end of the volume, is here followed. It appears to the present
writer that considerations of time exclude as many wars in 270 as are usually
assumed.
® Perhaps they were Carpi, for the Emperor was already Carpicus
Maximus in 272 (C.I.L. ni, 7586). But cf. S.H.A. Jurel. 30, 4.
* S.H.A. Aurel. 22, 1—2: contra Zenohtam . . Ater jiexit. multa in itinere
ac magna bellorum genera confecii. nam in Thraciis et in lllyrico occurrentes
harharos vicit, Gothorum quin etiam ducem Cannahan sive Cannabauden cum
quinque milibus hominum trans Dantmium interemit', Orosius vii, 23, 4:
expeditione in Danuvium suscepta Gothos magnis proeliis profligavit dicionem-
que Romanamantiquisternunu statmt,c.i.!\so%\xtxo^i\i%xs., 13, i and Jordanes,
Ramona 290 m. - ® xxxi, 5, 17.
V, III] THE WITHDRAWAL FROM DACIA 153
the Gallic Empire was still independent, it was only by the army
of the Danube that the East could be subdued. If the Illyrian
troops, already weakened by losses, were to be withdrawn (and
they did in the sequel bear the brunt of the fighting against
Zenobia^), without surrendering the Danubian provinces to the
mercy of the Goths, there was but one course open and that
Aurelian took. He ordered the withdrawal of the Roman popula-
tion (‘Romanos’) from Dacia, transferred the legions of Dacia to
Moesia, to the two gates of Gothic invasions, Ratiaria and Oescus,
and named the country Dacia Ripensis. Behind it he carved out of
Moesia and Thrace a Dacia Mediterranea, the capital of which,
Serdica, received a great new imperial mint. This organized migra-
tion of Romans from Dacia to the south side of the Danube, where
farmers and recruits for the army were much needed, a migration
protected by the prestige of Aurelian’s victories, removed Roman
civilization from Dacian soil as completely as Trajan had driven
out the earlier Dacian inhabitants of the land^ (vol. xi, p. 553).
This strategic withdrawal re-established the Danube frontier
for a considerable time, while it also supplied a home to a large
section of the Goths, in which they succeeded in forming an in-
dependent State as the Visigoths, destined thereafter to be ousted
by the Huns and to exercise a deep influence on the fortunes of
France and Spain. The other Goths in the Black Sea area, probably
ancestors of the Ostrogoths, stirred again in 276; Tacitus,
Florian and Probus were to be much plagued by their naval
expeditions. From the West Goths, too, came isolated plundering
raids southwards. But the great movement was at an end, and the
East German Gepidae, who had meanwhile pushed into Eastern
Hungary and had fought bitterly with the Goths and Vandals
for their settlements, were not in time to share actively in the
invasions*.
III. THE ATTACKS OF THE WEST GERMANS
It is under Caracalla that the name of Alemanni first occurs.
It appears that this people is identical with the Semnones, who
lived to the west of the Elbe^ and, encroaching on the lands where
v; :Zc»imus I, 52, 3. ' :v - CV-
* For another view see C. Patsch, Sitz.-Ber. d. Wien. Akad. -phiL-hist.
Kl. 217, I. Abh. 1937, pp. 176 sqq.-, Besnier, op. cit. pp. 243 sqq.% C. Dai-
coviciu, La Transylvanie dans T Antiquiti^ Bucharest, 1938.
® It appears to the present writer that the mentions of them in S.H.A.
are additions by the compiler of the work. ^ . ‘
* Schmidt, op. cit. ir, pp. 236 sqq.
1 54 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
the more gifted and civilized Hermunduri had been settled, ex-
ercised a dangerous pressure on the limes of Upper Germany and
Raetia. Caracalla inflicted a serious defeat on them in 213 and
protected the military frontier opposite them with new works of
defence (p. 48). But, twenty years later, they started a destructive
offensive against the frontier-districts of Upper Germany and
Raetia. The coin-hoards attest the destruction of very many forts
in these years (a.d. 233— 234). The Raetian /2w« in what is now
Bavaria seems to have been badly shaken over considerable
sections at that time, whereas the stretch towards Upper Germany
was successfully restored^. The gentle Severus Alexander failed
against them in 234, and it was left for Maximinus Thrax to
punish them effectively in the following years (p. 73 sql). Again
there was a temporary relief; everywhere the fortifications were
repaired and strengthened. The continuity of coin-hoards in the
region of the German limes down to the joint rule of Valerian and
Gallienus, together with the inscriptions, shows that life was going
on normally in these parts. But the general convulsion of the
Empire gave these peoples, too, their chance. They certainly
made raids under Galius, for the expeditionary force concentrated
in Raetia in the early autumn of 253 was doubtless intended to
avenge their devastations^. The sudden withdrawal of the army
to Italy had the natural effect of heightening the offensive spirit
of the Alemanni. Besides minor incursions, of which our meagre
sources preserve no record, they carried out a terribly destructive
raid on Gaul and pressed on through Switzerland into Italy^.
One band made its way as far as Rome itself, but was frightened
off by a numerous army, which the Senate had hastily assembled
and armed. Gallienus himself now hurried over the Alps. He
brought with him the legion VIII Augusta from the Rhine and,
on his way, drew the I Adiutrix and II Italica from Pannonia and
1 Cf. Schmidt, o-p. cit. lA, pp. 246 sqq. \ P. Goessler, Germania, xv, 1931,12;
W. Veeck, ‘Die Alamannen in Wurttemberg’ {Germ. Denkmaler der
Friihzeit, i), 1931, pp. 97 sqq., E. Fabricius, P.W. s.v. Limes, col. 6n; E.
Norden, Aligermanien, p. 24 sq. The rest of the literature is cited in these
works.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxii, i.
® Schmidt, op. at. iih pp. 248 sqq. It must be supposed that this is the
invasion, described in Zosimus i, 37—38, i (cf. Norden, op. cit. p. 25), when
the Emperor was actually north of the Alps (Zosimus i, 37, i) and Rome
itself was threatened. This identification is supported by the fact that the
invasion of the Marcomanni in 254 (cf. p. 139) did not get farther south than
Ravenna, and can therefore be left out of account.
V, III] , THE ALEMANNI 155
Noricum; his army, including the Praetorian Guard and the
II Parthica (from Albano), had not exceeded some ten thousand
men. Yet it sufficed to inflict a crushing defeat on the vastly
superior numbers of the Alemanni near Mikn^, The exact year
is not certain, but it must have been either 258 or 259*^. That
Gaul had been visited more than once by these invaders in the
years preceding is a very probable assumption^.
The blow thus sustained by the Alemanni certainly weakened
them and drove them from Italy; but none the less it was soon
found impossible to restore and defend the limes area in the angle
formed by the upper waters of the Rhine and Danube. Gallienus
did, indeed, refortify Vindonissa in 2 60, to bar the way southward
to the Alemanni^, and other forts were built at the same time^.
But the revolt of Postumus, at the end of 260®, set the Rhine
frontier and the Upper Danube in hostile opposition to one
another, and the intervening district along the between the
two fronts became a no man’s land. The latest inscription from
the Raetian limes dates from 256— 7^; it is to these strips of land
along the frontier that the notice, ‘ sub principe Gallieno . . . amissa
Raetia’^ must apply. The loss is likewise recorded^ of 'the districts
round the Lahn as far as the Sieg, or even perhaps as the Ruhr,
that is to say, the Roman sphere of influence extending from the
most northerly part of the frontier barrier^®.’ The evidence of
^ See Num, Chron, ig 2 g, pp. 232
^ This victory was numbered as the fifth German victory of Gallienus
and was followed by the suppression of Ingenuus and Regalianus, autumn
260. See p, 184 sq.
® The exploits of Chrocus (Gregory of Tours i, 32-4) may not be wholly
legendary (cf Schmidt, op, cit, p. 249, n. i and C. Jullian, Hist, de la
Gaule^ IV, p. 566): at least his name is good Alemannic.
^ CJ,L, xm, 5203.
® G. Bersu, SchwdUscher Merkur^ 8 Jan. 1927 (Isny).
® For this, the precise date, see the forthcoming article of the present
writer, ^The year-reckonings of the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus ^ in
C,LL, in, 59335 cf. Fabricius, op. cit. col. 61 1.
^ Paneg, vm (v), 105 cf. H. Zeiss, Bayr. ForgeschichtsbL x, 1931/2, p. 45.
^ Latere, Veron, 15 (in Not, Dign. ed. Seeck, p. 253): trans castellum
Mogontiacense LXXX leugas trans Rhenum Romani possederunt^ istae
civitates sub Gallieno imp, a harbaris occupatae sunt, Cf E. Ritterling, Bonn,
Jahrh, cvii, 1901, pp, 116 sqq, \ Norden, op, cit, pp. 24 sqq. Further details
in J. Steinhausen,.^rrA. Siedlungskunde desTrierer Landes y 1938, pp.
J. Hagen, Zeitschr, d, Aachener Geschichtsvereins, 11, 1930, pp. 344 sqq,
Ritterling, loc, cit.
156 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [ghap.
archaeology and coins suggests that the decumates were over-
run at the same time^.
That Gallienus in 268 still meant to hold Raetia in strength is
shown by the evidence of Aurelius Victor®: Aureolus, the com-
mander of the new cavalry corps, stationed in Milan, at the time
of his revolt was in Raetia ‘ in command of the army.’ Obviously
he had called the troops from that province to join him, for the
Alemanni immediately afterwards broke through® and advanced
over the Brenner as far as Lake Garda. After the murder of
Gallienus the new emperor Claudius marched against them and
dealt them a heavy blow, though unable to exploit his victory
strategically, for he was already compelled to turn his arms against
the Goths, who had flooded into the Balkans. So it came about
that the half of the Alemanni who survived^ were able to escape
homewards, as it seems with no great difiiculty. The gate had not
been barred and bolted against their invasions. They were not
even deterred from invading Italy once again in the very next
year. Aurelian was engaged in mastering the Vandals in Pannonia,
when he received the tidings that the Alemanni, with their kins-
men, the Juthungi®, were plundering the fields round Milan
(see below, p. 298 jy.). One band was actually in possession of
Placentia when he arrived. Near this latter city the Emperor
sustained a defeat brought about, it appears, by a surprise attack
by night from Alemannic forces hiding in the woods. The Via
Aemilia in the direction of Bologna- Ancona was laid open to the
foe, and it was not till they had reached the key to Rome on the
Via Flaminia that Aurelian overtook them and defeated them
decisively on the Metaurus near Fanum Fortunae. As the enemy
streamed back northwards, he pursued and defeated them a
second time near Ticinum, not far from Milan. The vagrant
remnant seems then to have been wiped out®. These blows, it
must be presumed, fell mainly on the Alemanni; the Juthungi
withdrew in an orderly column to the Danube, where they were
overtaken and defeated by the Emperor. This severe, but victori-
^ The coin-finds (cf. e.g. Schmidt, op. at. ifl, i, pp. 245 sqq.) have not
yet been arranged under dates and mints according to the results of the most
recent research.
? Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxin, 17.
® P, Damerau, Kaiser Claudius II Goticus, p. 52 sq., where further
literature will be found. ^ [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxtv, 2.
® They were living at the time somewhere between Nuremberg and
Re^nsburg, north of the Danube: cfi Schmidt, op. cit. ifl, pp. 251 sqq.
« S.H,A- Jta-eL 18, 6.
V, in] THE WARS OF AURELIAN 157
ous campaign had the eiFect of finally frightening off the Alemanni
and their comrades, at least from Italy. But Raetia was not
secured against them until Aurelian, on his way to fight Tetricus
in Gaul, cleared Vindelicia of their marauding bands (p. 309).
Probus later threw back the Alemanni over the Neckar on to the
foot-hills of the Swabian Alps, a success that marked the complete
efficiency of the Roman defensive at least (p. 315)^. Raetia could
at last draw breath^.
In a rapid glance over the raids of the Germans of the Rhine,
the remarkable fact emerges that it was not any movements among
the German peoples themselves, but simply and solely the loosen-
ing of the Roman power that occasioned the storm on the limes.
The Franks are no newcomers to the Rhine® but only a new league
of Bructeri, Chamavi, Salii and others, who had united in order
to make head more easily against Rome. This banding together on
a considerable scale had in point of fact strengthened them con-
siderably and had laid the foundations of the r 61 e they were after-
wards to play in history. They became active rather later than the
Alemanni. As early as 231 they were giving trouble to the Legio’
I Minervia*, but the operations against the Alemanni by Severus
Alexander and Maximinus must have had their effects on them as
well. It is, however, chiefly the coin-hoards that show how fast
and far the sense of insecurity spread along the Rhine and in
Gaul®. From 253 onwards the situation became difficult in the
extreme. It is significant, indeed, that Galiienus thought less of
the raids of Marcomanni and Quadi, that even extended to Italy,
or of the imperilling of Greece by the Goths, than of the danger
on the Rhine®. It is at this point that the authorities first mention
the Franks as the opponents'^. In 254, at the latest, the Emperor
^ S.H.A. Proh. 13, 7. Cf. Norden, op. cit. p. 31.
® S.H.A. Prob. 16, I. Cf. also Zeiss, yp. cit. p, 45.
® Schmidt, op. cit. iff, p. 433.
* C.I.L. xiii, 8017; Schmidt, op. cit. iff, p. 242.
® This material was first used by A. Blanchet, Les tresors de monnaies
romaines et les invasions germaniques en Gaule, 19005 cf. also his latest work,
Les rapports entre les depSts monetaires et les ivenements militaires, politiques
et iconomiques, Paris, 1936. Further references to literature will be found
in I. J. Manley, Effects of the Germanic Invasions on Gaul, 23^—284. a.d.
Evidence from the Dutch frontier districts is collected in H.. Brunsting, Het
Grafveld onder Hees bij Nijmegen (Allard-Pierson Stichting, Arch. Hist.
Bijdragen, 4, 1937, PP- ^ 9 ^ NI-)- ® Zosimus i, 30, 2.
’ Zonaras xii, 24 596) 5 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxni, 3. On these
invasions see also Schmidt, op. cit. iff, pp. if'^jsqq. and A. Vincent, Milanges
Pirenne, ii, pp. 669 sqq. . , , . , ;
158 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
seems to have reached Gaul. Arrived there, he guarded the
Rhine crossings and ejected the scattered bands of invaders^. He
even crossed the river to punish the raiders; an expedition of this
kind seems to have occurred in 255 — its successful termination
was celebrated by an inscription of the Twentieth legion^. But,
as Gallienus had few troops at his disposal and was almost crushed
by the vast hordes of the enemy, he eased the situation by con-
cluding an alliance with one German prince against the rest— an
alliance that actually put a stop to the raids.
Two, or perhaps three, major campaigns fell to the Emperor’s
lot before 258^. He did not hesitate to set up his headquarters
on the front itself in Cologne^. Thence he hurried (258 or 259)
to Italy against the Alemanni and again (in 260) to Pannonia
against Ingenuus; at his departure he left his son, Saloninus, in
Cologne. At this moment, in the autumn of 260 (p. 185), his
general Postumus succeeded in disposing of an invading band of
Germans and used his success to secure his own proclamation as
rival emperor. It must be admitted that Postumus defended the
Rhine frontier with the same energy as Gallienus and developed
the defence further by fortifications and the erection of bridge-
heads® — depending no less than Gallienus on the aid of German
against German. His coins and inscriptions announce German
victories in 261 and 264. But the division caused by his pro-
clamation sealed the fate of the agri decumates. Even so, his forces
were frequently and severely hampered by the need to arm against
Gallienus and by heavy fighting against him. That he was not
even wholly successful on the defensive is illustrated by the
numerous hoards of coins buried in his reign on French soil®;
they show that the general insecurity rather increased than
^ Zosimus loc. cit.
^ C.I.L. XIII, 6780. Cf. A. von Domaszewski, Phil, lxv, 1906, p. 350.
The inscription, C.I.L. xi, 2914, to judge from the tribunician power,
should also date from 255.
® Among the five German victories, which he counted (cf. Num. Chron.
1929, pp. 218 sqq.), the defeat of the Alemanni was included, as were
certainly also the wars with the East Germans, so far as they were successful;
the exact attributions are thus rendered more difficult. As the war with the
Alemanni was victoria quinta (cf. Num. Chron., loc. cit.) the successes on the
Rhine must all fall before it.
* This is proved by the transference of the imperial mint of Viminacium
to Cologne. On the place of the mint, see G. Elmer in the Bonn. Jahrb.
extra, 1938.
® See Sdimidt, op. cit. ii^ p. 250; Steinhausen, loc. cit.
® Cf. the sketch map in Manley, op. cit. p. 64 (fig. 2).
V,iv] POSTUMUS ON THE RHINE 159
diminished, as compared with the previous years (see, however,
below, p. 314),
All that he actually achieved was completely lost under his
weak successors. Aurelian brought some relief, but it was re-
served for Probus to restore order and stability. Under Gallienus
and Postumus the Franks took to the sea and plundered, among
other places, Tarraco in Spain; under Probus himself one roving
band carried out a romantic expedition of exploration and robbery
in the lands of the Mediterranean (p. 314 jy.). That the examples
cited were not isolated is everywhere shown by the coin-hoards,
that were buried at that time along the English Channel and right
down the coasts of France.
IV. THE EFFECTS OF ROME’S STRUGGLE
WITH THE GERMANIC WORLD
The movement of the East Germans, thanks to the advances in
excavation, is to-day completely intelligible (cf. vol. xi, chap. ii).
A general view can be gained of the process by which, in a com-
paratively short time, they pushed on from their tiny settlements
in Scandinavia to possess a vast area in the east of Europe. Their
new settlements were in the main fertile and thinly populated,
and so it is evident, that it was not hunger and need or lack of
land to cultivate that led them southwards, but sheer excess of
youthful energy and love of adventure — -just as in the ‘ Sturm und
Drang' period of the Celtic race many centuries earlier.
The Goths were men of a mighty stamp; their warriors were
giants indeed^. Sometimes it happened that the attacking Germans
were few in numbers and only able to gain the upper hand through
the effeminate cowardice of the garrisons of Asia Minor or of the
civil population^; but even when the Germans came in mass the
emperors could usually only lead inconsiderable expeditionary
forces against them®. There is probably no great exaggeration in
the statement that the Juthungi alone possessed 40,000 cavalry
and 80,000 foot*.
Apart from this wealth of numbers and vitality on the German
side, the main cause of their successes lay in the decline of the
Empire and the acute crisis on which it had now entered. War on
several fronts at once and, still more, the constant risings of pre-
tenders drew the armies from the frontiers; it can often be shown
^ Dexippus, frag. 26, 6 (F.G.H, n, p. 469). ® 2 ^imus i, 34, 3; 37, 2.
® See, for example, Dexippus, frag. 6, lo-i i {F.G.H. 11, p. 459); Zonaras,
XII, 24 596); Zosimus I, 68, i.
* Dexippus, frag. 6, 4 (F.G.H. ii, p. 457). : ; '
i6o INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
that the withdrawal of troops from a section of the frontier
immediately provoked a German invasion. Under such conditions
with pestilence and war decimating the population, with the
citizen body lacking all military efficiency, ready to stand by and
watch the raging of these children of nature, with an unexampled
financial crisis and revolution of ideas convulsing the world, it
was an amazing achievement to be able to ride out the German
storm at all. When one remembers that the army even in normal
times was too small for its tasks, and that the Empire’s man-power
was now terribly on the decline ; when one adds that in these times
of terrible pressure the whole organization and tactics of the army
were remodelled and that a new class of professional commanders
had to be trained to replace the dilettanti of the Senate, the achieve-
ment, due above all to the soldier-sons of Illyricum and a few
gifted personalities, must be rated very high indeed.
It was a great piece of good fortune for Rome that her ad-
versaries were so primitive. Instead of fighting in numerically
fixed tactical units, the Germans took the field in bands formed
through kinship or neighbourhood^ ; discipline in any real sense
there was none. After a stout resistance on the field of battle they
often collapsed from defective organization of supply, as, for ex-
ample, in the Balkans in 269. Inferior equipment and a reluctance
to wear helmets were serious handicaps. Furious, unconcerted
attacks often led to disaster^, and of the siege of cities they could
make nothing®.
The waves of the mighty inundation did, indeed, slowly sub-
side. But the devastation that they left behind them was terrible.
The masses of the cultivated classes, who at this time lost their
lives or were carried off as slaves, could never again be replaced.
Hundreds of cities were taken, and the terrors of those years are
attested not only by coin-hoards all over the Empire, but also by
the burnt layers turned up everywhere by the archaeologist’s
spade as the hall-mark or the epoch. Along with countless
treasures of art Rome’s store of gold went as booty, ransom or
tribute to the Germans. The export trade from the Rhine to the
Danube lands, which, as recent research shows, had attained serious
economic importance (p. 242), was completely checked by the
constant threat to the river-frontier, while trade by sea su&red
from the raids of the pirates.
1 Schmidt, op. cit. i®, pp. 55 sq., 60; H. G. Gundel, Unters. izur Taktik u.
Strategie der Germanen, Diss. Marburg, 1937, p, 21.
® Dexippus, frag. 6, i o (F.G.H. Ii, p. 459).
® Dexippus, frag, 25 (F.G.H. ii, p. 466).
V, IV] THE EFFECTS OF THE GERMAN INVASIONS i6i
Even in modern times war lets loose the basest passions. What
wonder, then, if those children of nature revelled in -sheer de-
struction^? If they deliberately burn cities after sacking them^,
or murder such prisoners as are sick or decrepit®? It would not
be wholly just to charge them with the moral guilt for all this.
The tragedy was not brought about by any ethical inferiority of
the German race, but by the clash of two worlds at different levels
of culture. As long as the Germans remained in their primitive
environment, it was natural that they should earn their daily
bread, not in the sweat of their brow, but in blood: ‘volenti non
fit iniuria.’ But when they turned this law of violence against the
world-State, which was adapted for peace and had based its whole
mighty organization on a humane mode of life, their primitive
morality proved disastrous to the higher morality of the Empire,
little as they can be blamed for it.
It is an observed fact that, the greater the friction, the greater the
assimilation to one another of two surfaces in contact; and so even
these destructive wars produced a pronounced assimilation of the
opposing parties, which, for the Germans, acquired a decisive
historical importance.
In order to compete with the armies of Rome, East and West
Germans alike united in considerable leagues, which in several
instances, such as the Alemanni or the Franks, became the basis
for States destined to survive. The rise of this class of leaders is
illustrated by the appearance of such personalities as Kniva, the
great opponent of Decius. In the later campaigns it becomes
plain how quickly the East Germans had assimilated the military
technique of the classical world^.
The gold extorted from the Roman State or from individuals
produced a major economic change in the German world.
Gathered at first in mere greed and employed as ornament, this
valuable form of property gradually became a regular medium
of exchange and was the chief factor in raising the Germans to an
advanced stage of money economy®. The finds make it possible to
follow the process by which gold coinage, streaming into Germany,
1 Cf. Zosimus I, 33, 3. ® Zosimus i, 35, 2.
® Dexippus, frag. 27, 10 (F.G.H. ii, p. 472).
^ Cf. Dexippus, frag. 29 (F.G.H. 11, p. 474). The siege of Philippopolis,
described by that writer, frag. 27 (F.G.H. ii, p. 470), must have occurred in
a later invasion, if only because it shows a highly developed technique; the
probable date is 268 or 269.
® Alfoldi, ‘Nachahmungen der rom. Goldmedaillons als germ. Hals-
schmuck,’ Num. KikdSny, xxviii/ix, 1933, pp- losqq., where the literature
is collected.
1 62 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap.
reached the North and, as early as the fifth century, filled the
whole of Scandinavia.
Even stronger in its elFects on Germany than the rivalry of
opposition was the slow and barely perceptible radiation of the
forms of ancient civilization. It will always be remarkable, that
this form of peaceful penetration, while beginning much earlier
with the West Germans, took a much firmer hold of the East
Germans, as the later history of the Goths and Vandals shows. It
is not possible here to describe the great influx of Roman export-
trade into free Germany, its passage as far as Scandinavia, and
the lively circulation of Roman money in the German sphere^;
but one fact can be stressed, that the definite settlement of the
Goths on the Black Sea and in the basin of the Danube had an
extremely invigorating efiect on the trade-routes leading from
these directions northwards. Plundering raids had already brought
great wealth from the Roman provinces to the Germans; but
the regular influx of gold, coined or in bars, was first due to the
relation of the tribes to the Empire as foederati and to the em-
ployment of individual Germans in the imperial army (see below,
p. 219).
The years spent in such service gave an education that could
not fail to have its consequences. German nobles now began to
reach high posts as officers, even if, in the first place, it was only
as leaders of their own people serving with Rome. Naulobatus,
the Herulian chieftain, who in 268 received consular insignia
from Gallienus, doubtless gave in return his services in the army^;
the ‘Pompeianus Dux, cognomine Francus,’ for example, who
played a part in the capture of Zenobia, was certainly a Frank^. How
rapidly these sturdy warriors made themselves at home at imperial
headquarters is illustrated by the anecdote about the Herulian
Andonoballus^; the debate as to which is preferable — the old
hostility or the friendship of the emperor — reminds one at once
of the contest of Eriulf and Fravitta at the court of Theodosius
the Great. How the spirit of the ancient world came thus to
permeate the Germans cannot be shown in detail here. To this
must be added — as early as the third century and with increasing
force thereafter — the Christian missions in West and East.
^ For a survey of the scattered literature and its results see O. Brogan,
y.R.S. XXVI, 1936, pp. 195 sqq.i cf. also the review by H. J. Eggers,
Germania, xx, 1936, pp. 146 sqq.
* For a different view see M. Bang, Die Germanen im romischen Dienst,
p. 92. ® For a different view see Schmidt, op. cit. n^, p. 439 n. 4.
* Petrus Patricius, frag. 17 1 (Ca^ius Dio, ed. Boissevain, in, p. 745).
V, iv] THE GERMANS AND THE EMPIRE 163
Such contacts as these encroached more and more on the original
civilization, Celtic in colouring, that the Germans had hitherto
possessed. No less influential in this direction than the civilization
of Rome was the Graeco-Sarmatian civilization of South Russia,
which not only succeeded in transfusing the Gothic peoples,
but finally extended as far as the Ugrians in the zone of the
wooded steppes and took possession of the Huns as they thrust
forward from Asia into a region between the Caucasus and the
Caspian (pp. 100 sqq^. This cultural influence can only be
grasped to-day from the material remains, above all, from the
characteristic gold jewelry with inlaid stones, which subse-
quently became so fashionable among the Franks and Anglo-
Saxons (p. 108). The fact that the ugly Sarmatian habit of de-
forming the skull succeeded in establishing itself among the East
Germans may, indeed, attest the taking over of deep-seated
religious and other ideas over and above the borrowings of art.
In all this we can detect the historical preparation of the German
peoples for the rdle that they were destined to play in the Middle
Ages.
This will be better understood from a brief survey of the other
side of the picture. It has been seen that Rome was unable to
make a complete settlement with the intruders. She was glad
enough to be able to deflect their hordes or secure their with-
drawal by payments of money. These payments developed into a
regular system, which, under the decent cover of the old scheme
of subordinate foederati, led on to the new and superior warrior-
caste found in the later Germano-Roman States^. As early as
Caracalla the budget was seriously burdened by the annual sub-
sidies paid to barbarian peoples^; the movements of the Germans
in the third century simply compelled the Empire to include the
whole of the surrounding world of the Germans in this system
of subsidies, which led directly to the interdependence of the
two great powers on one another. It can only be hinted in
passing, how many distinct gradations of assistance were possible;
conquered princes had to render actual service, others took over
the defence of sections of frontier as allies of equal status, under
Gallienus, or remained in their own lands to help the emperor
against his enemies®. It is further to be observed, how varied and
1 Cf. E. Kornemann, ‘ Die unsichtbaren Grenzen des rom. Kaiserreichs’
(in Staaten, Volker, Manner, pp. 96 sqq^% Th. Monunsen, Ges. Schriften,
VI, p. 229 sq.\ A. Graf Schenk v. Stauffenberg, Die IV dt ah Geschichte, n,
1936, pp. 159 . .
^ Dio Lxxix, 17, 3 (p. 421 Boissevain). ® Zosimus i, 30,-3.
1 64 INVASIONS FROM RHINE TO BLACK SEA [chap. V, iv
extensive were the employments of German material both in
regular Roman troops and in national formations in the im-
perial army (p. 2 1 1 sq.). The serious lack of farmers led, from the
time of Marcus Aurelius and, more particularly, from the middle
of the third century^, to the transplantation of ever-increasing
masses of Germans to the soil of the Empire as free or half-free
farmers.
While this intermixture of the peoples thus permeated the
lowest strata of the population, it also extended upwards into the
highest. The grandees of Rome might find it absurd that Cara-
calla should appear in public in German dress^: but it was at
least a foreshadowing of what was to be. The Marcomannic
secondary wife of Gallienus, in her position of high honour, and
the German princes on the council of war of the soldier-emperors
illustrate once again the incipient germanization of the court,
A far-reaching process of ancient history moved thus towards
its consummation. Rome was first compelled to draw the men to
maintain her world-empire from Italy instead of from the capital;
the exhaustion of Italy next transferred this r6le to the civilized
provinces of the interior, and, after them, to the rough sons of
the frontier-lands. Even these could not for ever bear the brunt of
the ceaseless wars of the third century. Rome was now driven to
go beyond them to the barbarian world. What she sought was
just human raw material, and no more, but the political centre of
gravity shifted naturally to the new forces beyond the frontiers,
and thereby rendered inevitable the birth of the Germano-Roman
States,, . ; •
1 E.g, Zosimus i, 46, 2; 68, 3; 71, 1-2; S.H.A. Prob. 18, 1-3. This is
becoming clearer from the results of excavations also in the Danube provinces.
^ Dio Lxxix, 3, 3; Herodian iv, 7, 3.
CHAPTER VI
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE (a.d. 249-270)
I. INTRODUCTION; THE AGE OF DECIUS,
GALLUS AND AEMILIANUS
A BRIEF survey of the period is necessary at the outset,
in order to indicate who were the chief actors in the
moving drama that was played in this brief span of time, what
were its essential features and on what lines the action proceeded.
Even this preliminary view enables one to recognize the special
character of these two decades by one of its essential traits — by
the amazing acceleration of the rhythm of events. Under An-
toninus Pius the solidarity and inner strength of the Empire had
been so great that its stability seemed to reduce every movement
to insignificance and the whole period took its character from
conditions, not from events. Then ensued blows of unexpected
violence, but still quite isolated blows, like the Marcomannic War,
or sudden revolutions like the coup (TJ^tat of Septimius Severus.
Such decisive events then follow more and more closely on one
another; in each and every department of life the pulse accelerates
till about the middle of the century, and then, gradually and
with many a relapse, it resumes its regularity. Not till Diocletian
has life become calm enough for us to be able to recognize its
essential conditions.
In the opening sections no appraisement of values will be given.
It is first necessary to fix the course of events- We observe
these at first from a great distance, so that the main contours
may stand out more clearly while the details disappear, and the
great movements show themselves plainly, but the din of battle
and the voices of individuals are no longer heard. Only when
the external order of events has been determined as precisely as
possible, we may approach the tumult of wars and the life of
every day, the headquarters, armies and masses, so as to determine
the forces that were at work, and appreciate the historical evo-
lution which kept these forces in play and the effect of individuals.
How do matters stand when this period begins? The two
Philips are dead; the victorious pretender, C. Messius Quintus
Decius, approaches Rome. The Senate welcomes him on his arrival
with extravagant honours and bestows on him the name of
i66 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Traianus, the ideal model of the emperor ‘by grace of the Senate^’.
Decius, however, at once emphasizes his absolute dependence on
the army of Illyricum,^ which had clothed him with the purple.
Decius had overcome Philip near Verona in September 249 (p.
94), In Rome, soon after the customary celebration of his arrival
and the solemn vows for the long continuance and happiness of
his rule, he initiated that campaign against Christianity that
threw large sections of the population into panic and misery (see
below, pp. 202 sqq^. He had still a short time left him for
buildings in the capital and for other occupations of peace. From
Syria was brought, according to the fashion of the times, the head
of the usurper, Jotapianus®, and as late as the end of December it
was still possible to discharge time-expired soldiers^. But signs
of disturbance soon appeared. In Gaul a civil war broke out, only
to be suppressed — whether the Emperor himself visited the pro-
vince cannot be decided®. Thereupon followed the tidings of the
inroad of the Goths into the Balkans (see above, p. 143). About
April or June 250 Decius made his elder son, Herennius Etruscus,
Caesar, a youth who, to judge by his portraits, had hardly reached
man’s estate — and sent him with an armed force to Moesia. Soon
afterwards he himself set out. Probably to ensure the loyalty of
the capital by a representative of his house he appointed his
second son, Hostilianus, Caesar®. P. Licinius Valerianus, a re-
spected member of the Senate, was, it appears, set at the boy’s side,
to direct the civil administration for him during the Gothic war.
The wife of Decius, Herennia Cupressenia Etruscilla, now raised
to the rank of Augusta, may well have lent her help and counsel to
the young prince. Simultaneously with the war the persecution
of the Christians proceeded on a grand scale. Towards the middle of
June the required sacrifices began, and the authorities, during some
The name Traianus only appears after the entry of Decius into Rome
(cf. K. Wittig, P. W. s.v. Messius (9), cols. 1 247 sqq.). But, as there was no
justification for the adoption of the name by Decius himself (such as the
motives that prompted Severus to take the name of Pertinax, or fictitious
relationship, as in the case of the adoption of the name of Antoninus by
Caracalla, Elagabalus, etc.), it is evident that this title of honour was voted
by those same people, who greeted the new emperor with the cry ''felidor
Auffisto, me liar Traiano.’
^ Cf. Alfoldi, Funftmdzwanxig yahre RSm.-Germ. Komm. p. i'2 sq.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxix, 2; 2 k»simus i, 20, 2 (under Philip).
* Wittig, op. cit. col. 1267 sq. Whether these veterans were still kept on
the roll is another matter. ® Eutropius ix, 4.
* Wittig, op. cit. col. 1262. For another view see G, Elmer, Num.
Zeitschr. i 93 S> P> 4° and K. Pink, ih. 1936, p. 19.
VI, I] DECIUS 167
weeks, gave certificates of compliance to the loyal who sacrificed
and began to persecute the recalcitrant (see p. 202). But the effects
of the long drawn-out war soon began to be acutely felt. The mob
of Rome, in its desire for a new r^gime^, went to the length of
proclaiming a rival emperor: the name of Decius was erased from
many inscriptions. But the pretender, Julius Valens Licinianus,
a man, it would appear, of senatorial rank, was soon crushed®. In
May 25'!, the two sons of the Emperor were proclaimed Augusti.
But, very soon after the joyful celebration of that event®, the
whole Empire was shaken by the news of the destruction of the
Roman expeditionary force (about the beginning of June), and
the heroic deaths of Decius and his elder son at Abrittus in the
Dobrudja.
It was some slight consolation that Julius Priscus, the governor
of Thrace, who had surrendered with his mutinous troops to the
Goths at Philippopolis and had been proclaimed emperor, had
in the meantime vanished from the scene. The wrecks of the de-
feated army in the Dobrudja proclaimed the legate of Lower
Moesia, C. Vibius Afinius Trebonianus Gallus, second emperor,
as the surviving son of Decius was still a child*. Gallus, in the
disastrous position in which he stood, had lost the power to dictate
to the enemy the terms of peace. The flower of the population of
Thrace — so far as it still survived — was carried off by the Goths,
and with it went the wealth of the provinces; besides all this,
the raiders received annual subsidies, to induce them not to
return.
Gallus treated his fallen predecessors with all respect and had
them consecrated by the Senate; Hostilianus he adopted as his son.
Only Etruscilla was forced into retirement, but the wife of the new
emperor, Afinia Gemina Baebiana, did not become Augusta, so as
not to encroach on her prerogative.® Gallus, however, at the same
time made his own son, Volusianus, Caesar and, not long after-
wards, Augustus; had not the son of Decius died of the plague,
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxix, 3.
2 Certainly before the election of the Pope Cornelius, March 251; cf.
Cyprian, £p. 55, 9.
® The appointment only took place very shortly before Abrittus; the mint
of Antioch had not time to strike for Herennius Etruscus as Augustus,
but only the mint of Rome. Cf. also J. Vogt, Die Alex. Kaisermunzen,
p. 198.
^ For another view see Wittig, op, cit col. 1273 and elsewhere.
^ The type of luno Martlalh may refer to the wife of Gallus; this new
goddess may be the deification of the mater castrorum, . :
1 68 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
complications must soon have arisen.^ Although enough re-
mained to be done in the devastated lands on the frontier, Callus
hastened to Rome to ensure his position by showing his respect
to the Senate.® Callus seems, in fact, to have concentrated his
entire attention on Rome®, and it appears that it was at Rome
that Callus and his son provided decent burial for the poor who
had been carried off by the plague'^. It was just at this moment
that a fearful plague broke out, which for fifteen long years was
to rage over the whole Empire. Apart from this, the two rulers
were incapable of any kind of energetic action ; the inroads of the
East Cermans not only continued, but rose to the pitch of an
appalling disaster — to say nothing of the complete neglect of the
East (see p. 169). The persecution of the Christians, which
began again in 253, did not reach any serious dimensions, for
the reign of Callus and his son lasted only two years.
The successor of Callus as governor of Lower Moesia, M.
Aemilius Aemilianus, had succeeded early in 253 in putting an
end to the devastation of his province by the Coths and had even
carried to a victorious conclusion a punitive expedition north of
the Danube. He was now proclaimed emperor. Though Coths
were still running wild in Thrace, Aemilianus turned in haste to
Italy to catch Callus unprepared. The surprise succeeded, and he
had reached Umbria before Callus and Volusianus encountered
him. Their army was so inferior in numbers to that of their
adversary, that their own troops chose to make away with them
rather than hazard a hopeless battle — at Interamna, or, according
to another tradition, a little farther north at Forum Flaminii.
After Callus had thus been disposed of, Aemilianus was recog-
nized in Egypt® and throughout the East, and plentiful issues
from the Imperial mint attested his confirmation by that same
Senate that had so recently condemned him as hostis publicus^.
His wife, Cornelia Supera, was made Augusta. But all these
glories lasted no more than three or four summer months^. For,
when Callus gave orders to P. Licinius Valerianus to bring up the
^ The combinations suggested by Elmer, op. cit. p. 41, break down on the
fact that the activities assumed by him for a ‘Moneta Comitatensis’ simply
represent the latest issues of the mint of Rome; cf. Alfoldi in 'Ntm. KozlSny,
xxxrv, 5, 1938. The suspicions suggested in Zosimus i, 25, 2 seem to be
unfounded. ® Zonaras xii, 21 (p. 589); Zosimus i, 25, i.
® Zosimus (i, 27, l) writes: rSav KpaTovvrmv . . .ordvra Se ra t)}? 'Vw/aoj';
6^(0 veptopdivTcov. * Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxx, 2.
® Vogt, op. dt. p. 201. ® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxi, 3.
’ For a different chronology see H. Mattingly, J.R.S. xxv, 1935, pp.
55 sqq.f cf. A. Stein, Laureae jiquincenses, 1938-
VI, Ii] GALLUS AND AEMILIANUS 169
Rhine legions to his aid. Valerian, instead of doing so, had him-
self proclaimed emperor. He had a strong army, which had been
collected in Raetia, no doubt to fight the Alemanni; he, too, now
turned with it towards Italy. Aemilianus met the fate of Gallus,
for, as he marched north, he was murdered, not far from the place
where his predecessors had met their death (near Spoletium or
perhaps between Ocriculum and Narnia). The army of Valerian
was felt to be the stronger, and Valerian himself was an imposing
figure, in virtue of his birth and his career, and so the troops of
Aemilianus chose to kill their own lord rather than face a new
civil war. It must have been out of respect to the authority of the
Senate that the new ruler did not leave it to the army to proclaim
his son, P. Licinius Egnatius Gallienus, as his colleague, but re-
quested the fatres to appoint his son a second Augustus about
September 2 53I.
While the best corps of the Roman army were tied down to
Italy by the civil wars, the frontier-guard was everywhere being
shattered by the encircling pressure of the neighbouring peoples.
Valerian now resolved to entrust the conduct of the wars in the
West to his son, while he himself very soon afterwards went to the
East, which, since Philip, had not set eyes on any emperor.
II. THE ROMAN EAST FROM VALERIAN
TO THE ACCESSION OF AURELIAN
The harsh rule of Philip’s brother Priscus had at once produced
a violent reaction. Jotapianus, who was perhaps descended from
a branch of the family of Severus Alexander, was raised to the
throne in Syria (or, perhaps, in Cappadocia) but he was quickly
crushed (p. 92 jy.). As neither Decius nor Gallus was in a position
to appear in person in the East, the danger abroad and the de-
moralization at home continued alike to increase. The peoples of
South Russia, who had by this time sucked the Danube provinces
dry, began to organize great sea-raids to plunder Asia Minor
(see p. 147). In 253 came the first sea-raid by the Goths of the
Black Sea which reached Pessinus and Ephesus. Armenia was too
weak to defend herself without vigorous assistance from Rome
against the New Persian Empire (see p. 13 1) and the friends of
Persia succeeded in murdering the excellent king, Chosroes. Soon
afterwards (under Gallus) his son Tiridates was compelled to flee
from his country, and now began that new Persian offensive
^ Cf. L. Wickert, P.W. s.v. Licinius (84), col. 352 sq.
lyo THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
against the Roman provinces of the East that was to last nearly a
decade^. Early in 253 the Persian bands swarmed over Mesopo-
tamia and Syria, captured Antioch and made good their retire-
ment with an immense booty and a countless host of captives.
When Valerian hastened to the spot in the winter of 253—4, he
was already too late. But the priest-king of Emesa, Sulpicius
Uranius Antoninus, who, owing to the impotence of the central
government, had been set up as a pretender and had successfully
organized the defence of his own small home-land, now vanished
from the scene at the Emperor’s approach. The gallant commander
of Pityus, the Successianus who had conducted an admirable
defence of that city against an assault of the Borani early in 254,
was appointed Praetorian Prefect and joined the Emperor in re-
building Antioch from its ruins.
Egypt, too, gained a moment of relief. How loosely the govern-
ment had been holding the reins can still be seen from the decay
of the coinage of Alexandria under Decius^. In the second
Egyptian year of Gallus (August 30, 251— August 29, 252) no
coins were issued — an omission without parallel between 216
and the end of the autonomous issues in 296®. But even the
presence of Valerian failed to bring any real stabilization. In
255 Pityus and Trapezus fell victims to an unexpected renewal
of the attack of the Borani by sea, and in 256 the Goths launched
their second great naval expedition, which, having sailed along the
west coast of the Black Sea, scared the demoralized garrison out of
Chalcedon. The conquest of this key-position placed the great
cities of Bithynia at the mercy of the Goths (see above, p. 148).
In this crisis Valerian proved utterly incompetent. Out of dread
of usurpations he could not bring himself to entrust any of his
generals with an expeditionary force against the Goths; all he did
was to send a certain Felix to Byzantium to direct the defence of
that important strategic centre, preparatory to undertaking the
campaign himself. Setting out from Antioch, however, he got no
farther than Cappadocia, while the passage of his army proved a
sore burden to the cities. As his general headquarters he chose
Samosata, a fortress in a commanding position on the Upper
Euphrates, covered against Persian attack by the strong advanced
bastion of Edessa. But even from this favourable position he was
unable to prevent the renewal of the Persian invasions. Hormizd,
^ For details in the account that follows, see A. Alfiildi, in Berpus iv,
1 937, p. S3 sq. For a somewhat different chronology see above, pp. 1 33 sqq.
® J. G. Milne, Catalogue of Alexandrian Coins. . p. xxiv.
® Id., A History of Egypt tender Roman Rule% p. 71.
VI, n] VALERIAN IN THE EAST 171
son of Shapur, first led an army against the frontier of the Eu-
phrates, The recent excavations at Doura-Europos, the point at
which he broke through, have given us an amazingly vivid picture
of the siege and of the mine-warfare that shattered the nerve of
the garrison of the fort. The latest coins found in the purses of
the soldiers who fell in this underground war can be dated to the
year 255, and appear to show that the fortress fell in that year
(see, however, p. 134).
Under these catastrophic conditions the spirit of hostility to
Rome in the East found violent expression. Mariades, a Syrian
noble of Antioch, led Shapur in 258 or 259 against his native
city. The local knowledge of the traitor led to a complete surprise.
The well-to-do were able, it is true, to escape; the officials saved
the mint and the State treasure, but the masses, who shared the
sympathies of Mariades, stayed on the spot. It must have been
through treachery that the range of hills near the city fell without
a blow into the hands of the Persians. Shapur made good his
retirement a second time unscathed with his booty, after burning
the city and laying waste the surrounding country.
In this fearful crisis Valerian found a vent for the general em-
bitterment. Since August 237 he had been engaged in per-
secuting the Christians with a success denied him against his
foreign enemies (see below, p. 205 jy.), and he now proceeded to
intensify the harshness of his measures against them. Hatred was
again allowed to run riot against a background of general dis-
aster and danger, exactly as under Decius.
The surprise attack on Antioch was followed by an even more
terrifying and devastating invasion by Shapur in 260. He had
pushed past Commagenian Antioch as far as Cappadocia, before
the fatal clash with the ageing Emperor took place. The Roman
army was decimated by the plague; it was even more seriously
depressed by the complete inertia and feebleness of its commander-
in-chief. In his lack of all resolution he seems to have postponed
the actual decision; it looks as if he shut himself up behind the
walls of Samosata. Finally he risked an engagement in Mesopo-
tamia, only to suffer defeat. The Persians then beset Edessa,
where the starving garrison, mutinous though it might be, still
gallantly repelled the enemy. Then, of a sudden, came the terrible
tidings that the Emperor had fallen into the hands of Shapur. A
whole series of picturesque and even fantastic stories was spun
about Valerian’s capture and the humiliations to which he was
subjected. When the Emperor died is not recorded. The jubilation
among the Persians was immense (see pp. 135 sqq^.
172 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
The disaster itself occurred in the second half of June, 260^.
The Persians followed hard on the Roman army as it fled in utter
confusion, laying waste the cities as they went. For the third time
Antioch was visited by the tide of plunderers. Many other
flourishing centres of civilization in Syria, Cappadocia and Cilicia
were destroyed. Lycaonia, too, had been drawn into the vortex,
when at last a counterstroke came from the side of Rome.
Mesopotamia itself had been occupied by the Persians, but,
while Nisibis and, as it seems, Carrhae also were taken, Edessa
defied their attack. Its valiant defenders were actually able to
give sufficient trouble to Shapur on his return to induce him as
he passed the fort to surrender the treasure captured in Syria,
rather than expose to their attacks an army that had lost its
formation and had ceased to care for anything beyond securing
its booty. Behind the cover of this bulwark Macrianus, who had
been praepositus annonae expeditionalis and, at the same time,
procurator arcae expeditionist or, in other words, Quartermaster
General, was able in Samosata to take in hand the whole task of
re-organization. The enemy had scattered over the east of Asia
Minor to plunder and thus facilitated the Roman counter-stroke.
A certain general Callistus (nicknamed Ballista) had put on ship-
board the troops that he had collected in concert with Macrianus,
and had surprised and defeated the Persians at more than one
point on the Cilician coast; he even succeeded in intercepting the
baggage-train and concubines of the Great King. This loss im-
pelled Shapur to retire, driving before him his hordes of captives.
But he was thankful enough to regain the Euphrates, for, as he
passed Carrhae on his way to Ctesmhon, he was again attacked,
this time by Odenathus, prince or Palmyra, and suffered such
fresh losses that his victorious homecoming still left him crippled
for a long time to come.
Macrianus had renounced his allegiance to the captive Emperor
when Shapur tried to negotiate with him in his name. That is the
reason why the obverse types of Valerian disappear at this
moment from the issues of the imperial mint at Samosata and the
coinage is continued solely in the name of Gallienus. But in
September, when the successes above chronicled had brought a
first interval of peace, Callistus and Macrianus broke with
Gallienus. Callistus and Macrianus were both barred from the
throne — the former, perhaps, by his low birth, the latter by his
lameness. They therefore proclaimed as Augusti the two sons of
^ The election of the Pope Julius on July 22nd, 260, seems to be con-
nected with the arrival of the news of the death of Valerian.
VI, II] MAORI ANUS 173
the latter, T. Fulvius Junius Macrianus and T. Fulvius Junius
Quietus. Callistus was named Praetorian Prefect.
Conditions were not unfavourable for this rebellion^. The much
suffering East greeted the young pretenders with enthusiasm;
Gallienus had his hands fast tied in the West, while Shapur was
completely crippled. But Macrianus would not confine himself
to one section of the Empire and soon set out with his elder son,
of the same name, to conquer the West. In the spring of 26 1 the
Eastern army reached the Danube provinces, where Aureolus,
the gifted but unscrupulous general of Gallienus, awaited it. The
regiments of Pannonia, which cherished a bitter spite against
Gallienus for putting the defence of the Rhine frontier before the
protection of Illyricum and had already twice risen against him
(see p. X84), joined the Eastern army. But these Oriental troops
had little stomach for civil war. When the battle began and a
standard chanced to fall with its bearer to the ground the other
signiferi hastened to lower their standards, in token of submission.
Both of the Macriani met their death. Callistus, who had stayed
behind in the East with the younger pretender. Quietus, was un-
able now to sustain his position. On the news of the fall of the
Macriani many cities revolted against him and Gallienus adroitly
directed Odenathus, prince of the desert-city of Palmyra, to
attack him. Odenathus assailed Callistus in Emesa and slew him,
while the inhabitants of the city, in their hard plight, executed
Quietus, about November 261.
The complications and abuses that these revolutions occasioned
can to some extent be realized from the one example of Egypt.
The mint of Alexandria, as late as August 260, was preparing
coins of Valerian for the Egyptian New Year (August 30); the
capture of the Emperor was not yet taken to involve the loss of
his imperial rights; the contrary view taken by Gallienus was
obviously not yet known. But as early as September Macrianus
and Quietus were recognized in Alexandria as in most other parts
of Egypt. After the defeat of Macrianus in Illyricum the mint
of Alexandria resumed its allegiance to Gallienus, whereas other
parts of the country, as the papyri show, remained true to Quietus
up to the moment of his death. In Alexandria itself these changes
were attended by bloody fighting. The city split into two hostile
camps; the testimony of the Bishop Dionysius shows that the feud
was still alive about the Easter of 262. The head of the opposition
party was L. Mussius Aemilianus, who since 257 had been
prefect of Egypt. As he was still there in 262, there can be no
1 For details see AUhldi in Berytus v, 1938.
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE
174
[chap.
doubt that he had first taken the side of the Macriani and only
raised his own flag of revolt after their fail. As the mint of
Alexandria lay in the quarter that resumed its allegiance to
Gallienus, it was not at his disposal, but it is quite possible that
he took the purple. It may be that he was encouraged to do so by
a successful blow at the Blemmyes on the southern frontier of
Egypt; Odenathus was unable to attack him, as he was at that
very moment advancing into Persia (see below).
The detachment of Alexandria was highly dangerous to Italy:
it seems as if Rome looked in vain for the Egyptian corn-fleet. It
was probably by a naval expedition that Gallienus succeeded in
ridding himself of the rebel : Aurelius Theodotus, the general of
Gallienus, successfully carried out the coup^ while the Emperor
himself, it seems, advanced by land to Byzantium, ready to inter-
vene, if need arose. Theodotus, who now became prefect of
Egypt, succeeded a little later in crushing a fresh rebellion, led by
a Moorish officer, Memor.
In the years that followed, Septimius Odenathus, prince of
Palmyra, came to be the most important political factor in the
Roman East. It will be seen later how important a part the
Palmyrene archers played in this period in the military history of
Rome. But, besides archers, Odenathus had excellent heavy mailed
cavalry on the Persian model. Nor did he fail to profit by the luck
of the moment. He had little difficulty in surprising Shapur’s
rabble army; the defeat of Quietus was made easy by the with-
drawal of the main army under Macrianus, while Gallienus, until
his hands were free, was only too glad to find so effective an ally.
Odenathus had originally sought closer touch with Shapur,
whom he had esteemed far more highly than he had the Romans,
but he was rudely rebuffed. This left him no choice but to draw
closer to Valerian. As early as 258 he enjoyed the high distinction
of becoming vir consularis. His successful attack on Shapur on his
march homewards reveals the relentlessness of his opposition to
that prince — an opposition perhaps intensified by the Sassanid
conquest of Characene and the closing of the caravan route to the
Persian Gulf. Gallienus bound him to himself in the service of
the Empire by high titles of honour, and, after the removal of
Quietus in z6i, entrusted him with the counter-offensive against
the Persian Empire. Odenathus was able to supplement the re-
mains of the Roman army of the East with a strong native levy
from Syria and in 262 opened his first counter-attack, which he
began by regaining the great Mesopotamian fortresses, such as
Carrhae and Nisibis, and then defeated the Persians in battle.
Shapur was besieged in his own capital, and Gallienus could re-
VI, Ii] ODENATHUS OF PALMYRA 175
ceive the title of Persicus Maximus. Some years later, early in
267, in a campaign in which his son and co-ruler, Septimius
Herodes, shared, OdenathuS again marched to the gates of
Ctesiphon. He then turned back to meet the invasion of the Goths
in Cappadocia, and advanced as far as Heraclea Pontica; but he
came too late, and, not long afterwards, was murdered together
with his son (p. 176).
These victories produced a decisive change in Rome’s relation
to Persia. Chance has preserved the record of the execution of
great works of fortification in Adraha by the governor of Roman
Arabia in the years 261—2 and 262—3, and this is doubtless only
a reflection of a more general activity. In Doura, one of the most
important points at which Shapur had broken through, a Roman-
Palmyrene garrison was again stationed as early as 262. Armenia,
too, must have returned to its allegiance to Rome, even if our
sources only suggest it indirectly.
The relation of Odenathus to Gallienus is precisely defined by
the titles which the Palmyrene prince received from his overlord.
On his first expedition against Persia he had already at his dis-
posal the remains of the Roman army; he must then have held
the title of dux Romanorum. This is an exceptional position, in
which the exact powers are deliberately left undefined, as is like-
wise the case with the civil titles of this prince. The competence
of the Roman governors was not meant to be undermined by this
new dignity, which was intended to have a purely personal
significance. After his victory over Persia Odenathus received
the title of imferator. Besides the diadem of the king, Odenathus
now wore, as did his son after him, the laurel-wreath of the imperial
Imperator. Such an honour was barely reconcilable with the
subordinate position of a vassal-prince, and already foreshadowed
the struggles for the prestige of Empire that were to ensue. Nor
did the civil distinctions bestowed on Odenathus represent any
steps in the normal oflicial career. As early as the second century
the special commissioners to restore order in the cities of the Roman
East had been designated legati Augusti ad corrigendum statum
civitatium liberarum (vol. xi, p. 558). Now, when exceptional
conditions were the rule, this function was further developed.
Thus arose the position of a corrector totius Italiae, held by the
distinguished Pomponius Bassus (p. 391); Odenathus similarly
became corrector totius Orientis. This did not imply that the civil
and financial administration was allotted to him, only that he
enjoyed a certain right, of supervision. Apart from the Roman
titles of honour the dignity of tne Palmyrene , ruler is now de-
scribed by the new title ‘ King of Kings.’ This was not incompatible
176 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
with his subordination to his Roman suzerain, for the same title
had long been allowed, together with the absolute grant of in-
dependent sovereignty, involved in a separate coinage in gold, to
the kings of Bosporus. But what the name did emphasize the
more strongly was a rivalry with the Great Kings of Persia.
The boundaries of the realm of Odenathus in his new position
were to the north the Taurus mountains, to the south the Arabian
Gulf; it extended also to Cilicia, Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia.
Asia Minor and Egypt were not included and had to be seized
by force later, as will soon appear.
More particularly after the conferment of the title of imperator
the position of the mighty sheik fell little short of imperial auto-
cracy. From the Roman point of view, therefore, it could only be
regarded as a temporary concession, demanded by the necessities
of the moment. Friction with the governors must have been an
everyday occurrence. Two significant cases are known. A Roman
official, Quirinus by name^, could not stomach the fact of Odena-
thus’ conducting the war of Rome (against Shapur) ; Odenathus,
in revenge, sought to put him to death. It is not impossible
that this ‘C^irinus’ is the same as Aurelius Quirinius, who is re-
corded as head of the financial administration of Egypt in 262.
The second instance was far more serious in its effects. A
Rufinus is mentioned, who had had the ‘elder Odenathus’ put to
death and was called to account for it before Gallienus by ‘the
younger Odenathus.’ In the ‘elder Odenathus’ we must, with
Mommsen, recognize the prince of Palmyra; in the younger
Odenathus, his son falsely so-called, Vaballathus Athenodorus —
the more so as another tradition makes the Emperor get rid of our
Odenathus®. In that case, the instigator of the murder would be
the Cocceius Rufinus, who is known as governor of Roman
Arabia at this time, and the political character of the deed is
further to be seen in the fact that the eldest son of the king,
Hairanes-Herodes, was killed along with him®. It is known from
other sources that the murderer himself was a kinsman of the
prince, who, of course, may have been prompted by personal
rancour; but behind him stood the plotter, who imagined himself
to be acting in the interests of Rome.
With Odenathus vanished from the scene yet a third leading
personality of Palmyra — and this, too, can be no mere coincidence.
^ Not Carinus, cf. Petrus Patricius, frag. 1 68 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain,
m, p. 744).
® Johann. Antioch, frag. 152, 2 (F. if. G. iv, 599).
® See Note 2 at the eno of the Volume.
VI, n] THE DEATH OF ODENATHUS 177
It was Septimius Vorodes, who had received from Gallienus the
dignity of a iuridicus and a procurator ducenarius and who had
stood at the side of his king as military governor (argapetes) of
Palmyra. The latest inscription that mentions him was set up in
April 267 ; it was just about that time that Odenathus was stabbed.
In one way or another he seems to have been involved in the plot.
Odenathus, indeed, was originally no convinced adherent of
Rome. But, grievously insulted by Shapur and at bitter war with
him, and loaded by Gallienus with unprecedented distinctions, he
maintained a firm loyalty to Rome. Yet, after all, it appears as if
the second victory over Persia widened the horizon of his
ambition and as if he were meditating a breach with Rome^. For
this he had to pay with his life, as had many another barbarian
king in the course of the Empire.
There are many other indications which suggest that Gallienus
intended to make a thorough settlement with Palmyra immediately
after the death of Odenathus. In the year 267 a new mint
was established in the west of Asia Minor, the die-engravers of
which were in part detailed from Siscia, and so attest the initia-
tive of the Emperor. As in this period the foundation of mints
was without exception designed to provide pay for the troops,
this new mint points to the establishment of a base of operations
in Asia Minor. Further, the new issue of 268 at Siscia has the
reverse type Orient Augusti, which sounds like an advertisement
of the claim to the East (p. 1 87). The Vita also reports that
Gallienus sent Heraclianus with an army to the East, but that the
Palmyrenes defeated him. Even if this goes too far and an open
clash cannot yet have occurred, it is clear that Gallienus was only
prevented by the terrible raid of the Goths on Asia Minor in 267
and the great Herulian invasion of 268 (p. 149) from making a
final reckoning with Zenobia, the wife of the dead prince, who
carried on the government in the name of her son, Herodianus, a
minor, and, after him, of her third son, Vaballathus (p. 178).
The complete failure of Valerian, the inability of Gallienus to
transfer his activities to the East, the terrible German invasions of
267 and 268, must all have fostered the conviction in Palmyra
that Rome was no longer capable of holding the reins of the East.
The important part that the soldiers of Palmyra had for decades
maintained in the Roman army must have heightened their con-
sciousness of their native worth. The achievements of Odenathus
followed, to confirm the conviction that it was the mission of
^ In the episode of Rufinus (Petrus Patridus, frag. 166 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, nij p. 744)) this is twice em|diasized. ® 1 3, 4-5, i
178 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Palmyra to rule the East, a mission that Zenobia set to work to
realize with all the ambition and capacity of a Julia Domna.
It was most fortunate for Rome that Palmyra could find no
support against her in Persia. It was not only the senseless folly
of Shapur or the adroit diplomacy of Gallienus, not even the en-
tanglements of the last years that compelled the Queen to fight
out the battle for the East in a Roman setting and under Roman
forms. Not that the strength of Iranian influence in this environ-
ment need be denied. Odenathus, it is clear, was regarded as a
pure barbarian, not only by the Roman commanders who were
active in the East, but by the Syrians of Emesa themselves. More
than this, it is obvious that the rise of the Palmyrene power was
favourable to the elements that hated Rome. But, on the other
side, it must not be forgotten that Palmyra had not only been
illumined by the setting sun of Roman civilization, but had
already experienced the warmth and brilliance of Rome’s noon-
day prime. The long service of her young men in the Roman
armies in Africa and Europe must have done much to promote
assimilation to Roman ways. Even the Palmyra that, as a new
Great Power, refused to serve Rome any longer, could not get
clear of the Roman track, on which she had so long been running.
It was not the title of Great King, but that of Augustus, with
the rest of the full imperial title, which was the final goal of the
ambition of Vaballathus; Zenobia too, after the break with Rome,
adopted the style of Pia and Augusta. Instead of the Persian
tiara Vaballathus wears on his coins the laurel- wreath of the
Imperator, as does his mother likewise. Moreover, these new
aims of Palmyrene ambition were fixed by men who represented
the highest classical culture of the age, above all, by the philosopher
Longinus^. At the court of Palmyra assembled the Neoplatonists,
who, fleeing from Italy after the murder of Gallienus, continued
to dream of the rule of philosophy in the State.
It has been supposed that the Palmyrenes, in the years 267—9,
quietly and gradually absorbed the whole East, without disowning
the Roman government. But so well disguised an acquisition of
sovereign rights is hard to imagine. There is no evidence for a
separation of Syria from Rome in these years, nor is there any
support for the supposition that Zenobia then attached herself to
Persia in place of Rome. It could hardly be reconciled with such
^ The political connections of Zenobia with Bishop Paul of Antioch
seem to the present writer to be even less real than to Fr. Loofs {Paulm
vm Samosata, pp. 17 sqq., 31 sqqi). For another view, cf. e.g. G. Bardy,
Patd de Samasate^, pp. 200, 275 (with references to literature).
VI, u] ZENOBIA 179
a direction of policy towards Persia, that Vaballathus should still
have borne the title of ‘ King of Kings’ in 270 and that, even after
his ensuing revolt, he should have been called Persicus Maximus.
That Mesopotamia was abandoned to Persia at the time is a mere
baseless hypothesis: when Aurelian appears in Asia, Mesopo-
tamian troops join him— a clear proof to the contrary (p. 303).
On the other hand it can be shown that Zenobia only resolved
to refuse obedience to Rome at a later date, on receiving the news
of the death of Claudius. To take Asia Minor first, it is known^
that the power of Zenobia there till the death of Claudius ex-
tended no farther than Ancyra. West of this point, the cities of
Pisidia did in fact continue their issues of coin in the names of
Gallienus and Claudius, and one is inclined to place somewhere in
this region the new imperial mint, mentioned above; it continued
to function without change under Claudius. The statement that
Claudius was planning to transplant the Isaurians to Cilicia may
also be historical. All the more surprising is the fact that both
the new imperial mint and the autonomous issues of Pisidia no
longer mention Quintillus. In point of fact it was just at this
time (beginning of 270) that the Palmyrene troops began to
conquer the west of Asia Minor; when the news of the elevation
of Aurelian arrived, they were just trying to occupy Bithynia,
though they did not succeed^. That is why the mint of Cyzicus,
founded at the beginning of the reign of Claudius with die-
engravers from the mint in the west of Asia Minor^, continued to
strike for Quintillus and, after him, without delay, for Aurelian.
As regards the spread of Palmyrene power in Syria, the position
is cleared up by the activity of the mint of Antioch. It works
without a break to the end of the reign of Gallienus and even
dispatches workers to the new mint in the west of Asia Minor. It
then continues its striking for Claudius; the numerous types of
its two issues are certainly quite enough to fill the eighteen months
of this ruler^ But the coinage of Quintillus of this mint is to seek.
Just as the accession of Aurelian brought a change in Asia Minor,
so too in Syria. Zenobia re-opens the mint of Antioch and strikes
coins at once for Vaballathus, with the titles which Gallienus had
given his father, but with the bust of Aurelian on the reverse.
She was therefore aiming at an understanding with the famous
general, but she had already gone too far to obtain it (p. 301 sq^.
^ Zosimus I, 50, 1-2. ® S.H.A. Trig. lyr. 26, 7.
® 2 k>simus loc. cit.-, cf. also LG.R.R. m, nos. 39-40.
* A fact that implies that the Emperor had full control of it. i : ,
® For another view see H. Mattingly, Nvm. Chrm. 1936, p* 101 sq.
' 1 ^, ’ ' ' la-a
i8o THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Palmyrene activity following on the death of Claudius probably
extended to the province of Arabia^, and also to Egypt. In the
latter country the bitter feeling against Rome had been steadily
rising since the suppression of the revolts described above. Yet
another revolution in Alexandria followed, in which many members
of the Council joined in the breach of loyalty; for several years
the rebels were besieged in the suburb of Bruchium, until at last
they were starved out and forced to surrender, apparently in the
autumn of 268. It was no long time, however, after the awful
havoc of this war, that the anti-Roman party shouted in triumph
as the Palmyrene troops marched in.
Many writers, it must be admitted, have set this conquest under
Claudius. But, as the mint of Alexandria belonged to that em-
peror till the end of his reign and was even able to inaugurate an
issue for Quintillus, it is clear that it was only just at that moment,
about February 270, that the troops of Zenobia arrived. The
prefect, Tenagino Probus, was actually on the seas, engaged in
the subjection of the Gothic pirates and, in his absence, the
Palmyrene army under Zabdas, 70,000 strong, defeated the weak
Roman levies; Probus returned in haste and threw back the foe,
but soon lost his life by the treachery of the leader of the Palmyrene
party in Egypt.
Tenagino Probus served under Claudius first as fraeses Numi-
diae (end of 268), then as prefect of Egypt, and in that capacity —
doubtless in 269 — he chastised the Marmaridae, situated between
Egypt and Cyrene. From thence he was called to Carthage to quell
a revolt^. The year must have been nearing its close when he re-
turned with his army to Egypt and then took to the sea, the
Gothic pirates having got as far as Cyprus (p. 1 50). Then, early in
270, followed his return and his death fighting against Palmyra.
As at Antioch, so at Alexandria, the coins reflect the new turn
taken by events on the proclamation of Aurelian. Here again
appears the portrait of Vaballathus as imferator dux Romanorum
with the bust of Aurelian on the other side. Here again a com-
promise was proposed and supported by the despatch of the corn-
fleet in this year to Rome. But at the same time® Aurelian was
proclaiming his resolve to be Restitutor Orkntis.
^ Malaias xii, p, 299, 4 (Bonn). Cf. A. Graf Schenk v. Stauffenberg, Die
rom. Kaisergeschichte bet Malaias, p- 379 sq.
® &M.A. Probus, 9, I. For another view see A. Stein, in Klio, xxix,
1936, PP. ^37 W;
^ On the first of his own reverse types at Rome as distinct from
those of Quintillus which continued dll then, at latest, the summer of 270*
VI, m] PALMYRA AND EGYPT; THE WEST
i8i
III. THE WEST FROM THE JOINT REIGN OF
VALERIAN AND GALLIENUS TO THE PROCLA-
MATION OF AURELIAN
While his father betook hiraself to the East, Gallienus was
left with the task of ordering the affairs of the West. It was
perhaps at this moment that his mother, Egnatia Mariniana, died
and was consecrated; in her place his wife, Cornelia Salonina,
received the rank of an Augusta.
Now that the invasion of the Empire by its neighbours,
Dacian, Sarmatian and, above all, German, had become endemic,
wars threatened on every hand. It is not possible to determine
precisely where and in what order the five German wars of
Gallienus between 254 and 259 ran their course. What is certain
is that he was constantly and completely engaged in war, prepara-
tions for war and measures of defence against the invasions, and
must have done much more work at fortification than is directly
recorded.
It is clear, however, that he regarded the position in Gaul and
on the Rhine as the most critical and therefore undertook the
conduct of war on that front in person, while entrusting to his
generals the defence of the Danube lands. There, too, there was
mischief enough. In 254 the Goths were already threatening
Greece and the Marcomanni drove through Pannonia into
North Italy; Pannonia had also to suffer in these years from her
neighbours, the Quadi and lazyges, and could only be defended
effectively by the settlement within it of a Marcomannic king and
his tribe. Dacia was sorely harassed by the Carpi, but the title of
Gallienus, Dacicus Maximus, in 257 points to their defeat. The
despair of the population of Illyricum at an emperor who would
not come to their help, broke out during the ensuing years in a
succession of rebellions.
In order to have yet another representative of the reigning
house, whose presence might check usurpations if it did nothing
else, the Emperors early in 256 raised to be Caesar the elder son
of Gallienus, P. Licinius Cornelius Valerianus. He was still a
boy, unable to direct wars in person; it is probable, then, that he
remained chiefly in Rome. He soon died, early in 2^8, apparently
from natural causes, whereupon his younger brother, P. Licinius
Cornelius Saloninus, was at once proclaimed his successor, But
the difficulties produced by the incessant wars fanned such a ■
flame of hatred and desperation, that the government, towards the
i 82
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE
fCHAP.
autumn of 257, no doubt on the initiative of the elder Emperor,
resumed the persecution of the Christians and further intensified
it in the following year (see p. 205 jy.).
The same year (257) brought with it an important change in
the government. Gallienus numbered the victories he had won
under his own auspices and not those of his father, beginning with
the war against the Alemanni; on issues of Cologne he now
appears cum exericitu) suo, clearly emphasizing his independent
command-in-chief. A definite separation of Eastern and Western
armies must have occurred, probably not unconnected with an
estrangement between the two rulers that had consequences
beyond the military sphere. Gallienus now had his hands free to
carry out the reforms that he desired. It is certain that he now
called into being his new central cavalry corps, henceforth
stationed at Milan (see p. 217). It had soon to be tested in battle
against Ingenuus.
The imperial mint of Viminacium was in this year transferred
to Cologne, where Gallienus mainly resided and directed the
repulse of the German invasions from the Rhine. Nor did he fail
to show his energy in the building of fortifications. In fact he did
his utmost to earn the title of restitutor Galliarum that his issues of
Cologne give him. Either in 258 or the following year he had to
leave the Rhine to combat a serious invasion of Italy by the
Alemanni. With a small army he succeeded in defeating and
ejecting a greatly superior force, and returned forthwith to
Germany.
The next year was one of catastrophes unexampled in Roman
history. Early in 260 the governor of Numidia successfully
repulsed a number of attacks by the Bavares and Quinquegen-
tanei, in one of which the historian Q. Gargilius Martialis, after
greatly distinguishing himself, met his death on the field of
honour^. This campaign seems *to mark the end of a series of
disturbances of longer standing.
Then, towards the end of July, came the news of the tragedy in
the East (p. 1 71 j^.); the whole Empire was in confusion, and
conditions moved rapidly towards anarchy. But Gallienus kept his
head. Father and son had from the first been set in opposition by
fundamental differences of temperament and this had led on, no
doubt owing to Valerian’s failure, to an effective separation of
East and West in 258. In this moment of peril the benefits of the
change were realized. Gallienus was able to break the last ties that
bound him to the policy of his father. The captivity of the elder
1 Dessau 1194,, 2767; Cyprian, Ep. 62, i jyy.
VI, III] A YEAR OF CALAMITY 183
Augustus was naturally felt as an unprecedented disgrace to the
Roman name; even the late historians with senatorial sympathies
record their verdict that it was an ignoUlis servitus. This was the
view that Gallienus himself adopted. Far from considering any
steps for the recovery of his unhappy father^, he even went so far
as to deny, by a kind of damnatio memoriae, any connection with
his fatal regime. Hitherto the imperial coins of Egypt had in-
variably given Gallienus himself the added name of Valerianus;
now all of a sudden this stops^. Saloninus, too, in the short span of
life yet allotted to him, ceased to be called Valerianus and was
named Gallienus — at least in such places as Asia Minor®, where the
Emperor’s orders could still reach the officials. Gallienus would
not even tolerate further mention of the great victories that he had
himself won under his father’s auspices and insisted on the
numbering of his military successes from the separation of 258.
More than this, he prescribed the beginning of a new count of his
regnal years. This order reached Egypt in early summer 261
(p. 173) and the new regnal year one was placed besides the old
year eight*. Here the new count was afterwards abandoned, but
in the West it continued in use®. But the reaction against the old
regime went still further. Gallienus broke with the policy of
Valerian, who had steadily leaned on the Senate, and, by a polite
but definite exclusion of the senators from all high commands in
the army (p. 220), dealt a sore blow to the dignity and status of the
senatorial career. It is part of the same policy that his colleague
as consul ordinarius in 261 was no senator, but a distinguished
eques, L. Petronius Taurus Volusianus®, a man high in his con-
fidence, who had already been praefeclus vigilum and Praetorian
Prefect. The opposition of this man to the nobiles is also reflected
in the fact that he was not co-opted into the high priestly offices ;
but, in 267—8, he was praefeclus urbi, and protected the inter-
ests of the Emperor during his absence. A further evidence of the
break with the policy of friendship to the Senate is to be seen in the
^ Lactandus, wr?. 5, 6.
® A. Barb, iJum. Zeitschr. 1925, p. 114; Wickert, P. W. s.v. Licinius
(84), col. 351.
® Alfoldi, Num. Chron. 1929, p. 264; Cohen® v, p. 529 > uo. loi;
Mionnet, Suppl. ii, p. 433, no. 1421 sq.
* H. Feuardent, Numhmatique de l'£gypte ancienne, ii, p. 238 sq. For
another view see J. G. Milne, Am. Egypt, iv, igiq,p. 155 5 B. Laffranchi,
Aegyptus, xvii, 1937, pp. 25 sqq.
® Eutropius IX, ii, i. So too Aurelius Victor, Cues, xxxiii, 35; S.H.A.
Gall, duo, 19, 5.
® E. Groag, P.W. s.v. Petronius {73), cols. 1225 sqq. •
1 84 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
suspension, soon after the beginning of the sole rule of Gallienus,
of the bronze coinage with the signature s{enatus) c{pnsulto)^ a
formal but tenderly cherished symbol of the authority of the
patres. This bronze coinage had, it is true, lost its meaning
through the complete devaluation of the double denarius-, but
none the less its disappearance was tantamount to a grave infringe-
ment of the sovereign rights of the Senate (see below, p. 220).
From the middle of 261 the revolution in policy was felt in every
department of life. Its full import is further seen in the complete
reversal of the imperial policy towards the Christians (p. 206 jy.).
This change of direction and organization was carried out
under the most unfavourable conditions imaginable. Before the
autumn of 260 was past, two dangerous revolts broke out in
quick succession in the Danube lands. If the conjecture, that the
election of Pope Julius followed on the news of the capture of
Valerian, is correct, the rebellion of Ingenuus also broke out in the
second half of July, for it was ‘comperta Valerian! clade’^ that he
raised the standard of revolt. He was governor of Pannonia, and,
despite the misgivings of the Empress^, enjoyed the confidence of
Grallienus^. Moesia also joined him. He chose as his residence
Sirmium in the south of Pannonia, a city that was often to serve as
imperial headquarters. Not far from it, at Mursa, his troops en-
countered Gallienus as he hastened to the spot. The new cavalry
corps and its commander, Aureolus, came out of the test with
flying colours; the Moorish javelin-men, too, had their share in
the victory that Gallienus gained. Ingenuus was captured as he
fled and was put to death.
The Emperor had no wish to punish the’ rebels severely^; but
none the less the rebellion was renewed by the same troops. They
proclaimed emperof Regalianus, the governor of Upper Pannonia,
who had a number of old billon coins overstruck with his own
portrait at his improvised mint of Carnuntum®. Parallel issues
reveal the fact that he was married to a daughter of an influential
family of the Senate, Sulpicia Dryantilla®. Regalianus probably
had his adherents also in the Senate. It can be shown that, be-
sides the two legions of Upper Pannonia (X Gemina and XIV
^ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxni, 2.
* Petrus Patricius, frag. 1 62 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain m, p. 743).
* Chron. min. 1, 525, 45 Mommsen.
* Aramian. Marc, xxi, 16, 10; Petrus Patricius, frag, 163 (Cassius Dio,
ed. Boissevain m, p. 743).
® The doubts of B. Sana in KBo xxx, 1937, pp. 352 ryy. do not app^r to
the present writer to be justified. ® See Volume of Plates v, 232, /,
VI, III] REBELLION IN THE DANUBE PROVINCES 185
Gemina), the XIII Gemina (which can hardly have been still at
its old post in Apulum) and the garrison of Durostorum in Lower
Moesia were implicated in the revolt. But the reign of Regalianus
cannot have lasted more than a few weeks. Grallienus returned in
haste and made an end of him.
Meanwhile (in September), Macrianus had broken with Galli-
enus, had proclaimed his sons emperors and drawn the East to his
side (p. i‘]i sq^. This was yet another immediate result of the
catastrophe of Valerian. But the general consternation thus
produced had further, indirect consequences. Just before the end
of 260 followed a fourth usurpation. M. Cassianius Latinius
Postumus, who was possibly governor of one or other Germania^,
had quarrelled with another high officer, Silvanus. Silvanus was
in Cologne directing the government in the name of the Caesar
Saloninus (who, capable and attractive, was still quite a boy),
and even issuing commands to Postumus himself. The quarrel
was about the booty taken from German invaders, which Postumus
wished to distribute among his soldiers, but which Silvanus
sought to have delivered to the court of the Caesar, — probably to
secure the return of the stolen property to its owners. It is a
pretty picture of demoralization. Postumus marched on Cologne
and invested the city. While the siege was still in progress, the
mint went on striking large gold pieces in the name of Gallienus for
the New Year of 261^ and, in defiance, the young Caesar was
proclaimed Augustus^. But not long afterwards the garrison sur-
rendered both the prince and his tutor, and Postumus had them
put to death. The usurper then succeeded in occupying the passes
of the Alps^ and any thought of crushing him was frustrated by a
new threat. Macrianus was advancing with an army, 30,000
strong®. Aureolus defeated this force in Pannonia®, where
Gallienus, the persistent absentee, was held responsible for the
desperate misery of the times and where the garrisons again
joined this new rival; but the Oriental troops soon abandoned the
contest and the two Macriani both fell (summer, 261). Meanwhile
yet another rebellion, the fifth in a few months, had been disposed
of. A certain Valens, probably proconsul of Achaea’, who had
^ Cf. Petrus Patricius, frag. 165 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain m, p. 74.3).
® See Alfoldi in a forthcoming number of y.R.S,
® M.-S. V, i, p. 123, nos. 3, 14.
* Petrus Patricius, frag. 165 (Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevain ni, p. 743).
® S.H.A. Gall, duo, 2, 6. The number is exaggerated, ib. Trig. tyr. 12, 13.
® Zonaras xn, 24 599): cf. Alfoldi, Berpus v, 1938.
A. Stein, P.W. r.v. Fulvius (82), col. 261. p., ' i,';
i86 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
assumed the purple, met his death at the approach of Macrianus —
if any conclusion can fairly be drawn from the confused account
in the Augustan History, In 262 the former prefect of Egypt,
Aemilianus, spread consternation in Italy by detaining the corn-
fleet, and had to be removed (p. 1 73). It is possible that Gallienus
pushed forward to Byzantium, to restore order in those regions
(p. 174). It seems that on this occasion Pannonia, too, was re-
organized; the establishment and undisturbed activity of the
mint of Siscia from a.d. 262 onwards may count as evidence of
the facP. Early in autumn at the end of the ninth year of his
reign, Gallienus was certainly in Rome to celebrate his decennaiia^
with a magnificence still attested by an exceptionally rich issue of
coins. The panic of 260 and the usurpations attendant on it were
for the moment overcome.
It w'as now possible to attempt a reckoning with Postumus^.
In all probability Gallienus took the field against him early in
263. The passes of the Alps were either already in his hands or, if
not, were now captured. The first encounter brought defeat, but
it was followed by a decisive victory. The pursuit of the beaten
enemy was entrusted to Aureolus, the commander of the new
corps of cavalry; but Aureolus was meditating treason and
allowed Postumus to slip through his fingers. There was a general
conviction of his guilt; the Emperor alone gave credence to his
excuses — it was one day to cost him his life. Postumus, escaping,
succeeded in re-assembling his army — he could call upon large
bands of free Germans— but suffered a second severe defeat. He
threw himself into a fortified city in Gaul and was besieged there
by the Emperor. Luck again came to his aid. Gallienus was
seriously wounded by an arrow and was incapacitated from
directing the operations. He was presumably carried back to
Rome; the foothills of the Alps in the South of Gaul seem to
have remained in his hands, or at least the most important
passes.
The attempt to re-unite the whole of the West in one hand had
failed, and the failure involved a terrible weakening of the armed
forces of the Empire. The continuance of the conflict meant that
a large part of the troops on both sides was directed inwards,
whilst the frontier-defence suffered enormously; the district
along the limes of Raetia and Germany was doomed to perish
between the rival powers (p. 1 55), The lasting sense of insecurity
1 See Alfoldi, Shda i.
2 For criticism of the sources and the details of this war see Al&ldi,
Zeitschr.f. Num. xl, 1930, pp. i sff.
VI, in] POSTUMUS 187
in Gaul itself is attested by countless coin-hoards buried in those
years. Postumus, who, after his exploits as general in 260, had
again in 26 1 to parry a German invasion^, must undoubtedly have
been often compelled to defend himself against such attacks.
Even his boasted victory of 264^ was certainly the outcome of a
defensive campaign. On the other side, the forces of Gallienus
were insufficient to provide Dacia, that great advanced bridge-
head of the Danube front, with a full complement of garrisons
(see p. 1 51); even the Danube front itself had to be strengthened
by settlements of barbarians. Finally, this inner cleavage robbed
Gallienus of his last chance of ordering the affairs of the East in
person ; to guard against the Persian danger, he was compelled to
feed the rank growth of Palmyra.
Postumus did not content himself so exclusively with the
mastery of his Gallic realm as has been supposed. That he was
mainly restricted to it was more due to Gallienus than to himself.
It is true that at his proclamation he protested before his former
master that his only intention was to protect and prosper Gaul,
the task assigned him by Gallienus, and that he would shed no
drop of Roman blood. His coins, too, at the outset speak only of
the salvation of the Rhine provinces and represent him as
Restitutor Galliarum and as Hercules of Roman Germany
(Hercules Deusoniensis), But after the consolidation of his rule in
the West his ambitions increased out of all measure. He suc-
ceeded in forcing Britain to his side and visited the island in
person^. It has long been known from inscriptions that Spain
went over to him. After all this, he came to feel himself the
protector of Roma Aeterna, a new Hercules Romanus — as coins
attest — and, indeed, fears of his advance were entertained in
Italy while Gallienus was fighting against the Goths in 268*. In
fact, he even succeeded, if only for a short time, in bringing North
Italy on to his side, as will shortly appear. That Postumus even
dreamed of ruling the East is shown by his coin-types (continued
by his successors) with Oriens Aug(ustt), His aspirations to
world-rule are further illustrated by the legend on the reverse,
Restitutor Orhis.
To this general attitude the organization of his new State
corresponds. He certainly set up a new Senate, because he also
appointed consuls independently of Rome. He himself held the
consulship five times, — the fourth time as colleague of his future
1 Dessau 561. ^ M.-S. v, U, pp. 336 sqq. nos. 3, 14-15, 97. /
® A. Stein, P.W. s.v. Cassianius, col. 1663 sq. . ;
* Zosimus I, 40, I .
i88
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
successor Victorinas^, the fifth time just before his death in 269.
His bronze issues often bear the formula S{enatui) Cipnsult(^\ one
of his senators, as is well known, was Tetricus, whom he entrusted
with the governorship of Aquitania and who afterwards sat on his
throne. He had his own Praetorian Guard, stationed in Trfeves^,
for he had chosen that city as his residence and adorned it with
buildings®. Here, too, under his care, a new imperial mint was
established^. Both at this mint and at Cologne a precisely regu-
lated coinage in gold was produced, clear evidence of an efficient
economic administration, while his small change was just as bad
an inflation-coinage as that of his antagonist.
What Gallienus was doing in the years from 263— 267 is
unknown. There seems to have been no serious warfare, and the
effects of that inner consolidation that has been observed in the
empire of Postumus were not unfelt on the other side. The epi-
demic of usurpations of 260 had been mastered, and, until the
new flood of German invasions (in 267), there was a respite that
made progress possible. These short years, indeed, permitted the
ripening of that reaction of the ancient spirit, whose very soul
Gallienus was®, a reaction that even found expression in the art
both of his court and that of Postumus. Under the patronage of
Gallienus the circle of Neoplatonists that gathered about Plotinus
succeeded in framing a philosophy suited to an educated man and
in finding an expression for the political and patriotic necessity
of polytheism which remained valid to the end of paganism. In
art, again, the reaction of the classical antique against the modern
primitivism breaks for a brief moment of high intensity and signifi-
cance into flower; the observations on aesthetics found in
Plotinus show how close must have been the connection between
the Neoplatonists and this new bloom of art. The whole movement
had a pronounced hellenic character; was not the court of Galli-
enus crowded with Greek men of letters.?®
^ The fact that Postumus and Victorinus were colleagues in the consul-
ship has misled the author of the S.H.A. into regarding Victorinus as co-
regent with Postumus. {Gall, dm 7, i; Trig. tyr. 6, 1—3.) The truth is
given by Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxiii, 9—125 Eutropius ix, 95 cf. Epit.
XXXIV, 3. The same order of events is reflected in the coins) cf. P. H. Webb
in M.-S. V, ii, p. 324 ry.
® C.I.L. XIII, 3679; cf. E. Kruger, j^rch. An%. 1933, cols. 687 sm.
® O. Hirschfeld in C./.Z/.xiii,p.5o4b; R. Rau, P.W. j.'u.Treveri, C0L2340.
^ CJ.L. VI, 1641; c£ G. Elmer, Bonn, Jahrk cxmi, 1938,
® See below, p* 231.
® Alfdldi, Fmfmdzwmzig yahre Rom,^Germ. Komm» p. 29 and also
CJ,L, XXV, 5340 (M. Jur* Hermogenes, procurator a studiis).
VI, ra] THE ‘GALLIENIC RENAISSANCE’ 189
It was in definite harmony with these cultural endeavours that
Gallienus strove to lead the masses away from the mystery-
religions to the cult of Demeter of Eleusis^. It was perhaps while
engaged in measures of defence against the new German peril in
the Aegean that he journeyed to Athens, allowed himself, like
Hadrian, to be elected as eponymous archon and received
initiation at Eleusis. On the aurei of Rome appears at this time
the solemn religious type that represents Gallienus in the guise of
Demeter — a combination that strikes the modern mind as
ridiculous, but that is not so ' alien from ancient sentiment or
unfamiliar in the speculation of the mystics and gnostics; it bears
the name Galliena Augusta^, The return of Gallienus to his capital
was celebrated with extravagant honours— P(o-puli)
R(omant) intig avii) urh(em).
Apart from this, Gallienus is known to have been occupied
with the putting of the fleet on to a war basis and with the forti-
fication of the coast cities of Asia Minor. At the new year of 268
he experienced the joy of seeing his third son Marinianus
solemnly inaugurate his public career as consul®, but in the spring
he was compelled to hasten to the Balkans to counter an ex-
ceptionally serious invasion of the Heruli and Goths. He had
already won a decisive victory at Naissus, when a veritable Job’s
message called him suddenly back to Italy.
Aureolus, who had from the first commanded the equites, the
new ‘flying army’ of Gallienus and was now entrusted with the
troops of Raetia and other subalpine districts, in order to prevent
the invasion of Italy by Postumus, now changed sides. He had
already once, in the previous offensive, frustrated the complete
success of Gallienus by his ambiguous conduct. The coins, which
he struck in Milan in the name of Postumus, all glorify the virtues
of the cavalry under his command, who were the mainstay of his
rebellion. Gallienus handed over to Marcianus the prosecution of
the Gothic war (p. 1 50) and soon appeared in the plain of the Po.
Aureolus was defeated in a pitched battle near Milan. He
withdrew into the city and was besieged by Gallienus. While the
siege was in progress he was proclaimed emperor^ — an advance-
ment that was to cost him his life. Meanwhile a conspiracy had
been formed by the leading personalities in the entourage of
Gallienus. The Praetorian Prefect Heraclianus, the Emperor’s
1 Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 22 sq. and Zeitschr. f. Num. xxxviii, 1928, pp.
174 sqq. ® See Volume of Plates v, 236, k.
® Alfoldi, Num. Chron. 1929, p. 266 sq. ■
* For details see AlfSldi, Zeitschr. f. Num. xxxvu, 1927, pp. 198 sqq.
igo THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
deputy in the chief-command, M. Aurelius Claudius^ and L.
Domitius Aureiianus, the new commander of the cavalry®, were
the ringleaders of the plot. On a false report of the approach of
Aureolus with his army the unsuspecting Emperor rushed out
without helmet and cuirass, to meet him and received the fatal
thrust. The fact that the siege proceeded without interruption
after the murder of the Emperor argues strongly for the compli-
city of the whole staff. Great, however, was the indignation of the
army over the loss of its brilliant commander; it was only the
secret understanding between the chief officers that made it
possible to still the storm. To facilitate the prearranged proclama-
tion of Claudius, the story was put abroad that Gallienus, as he
lay dying, had solemnly appointed him his successor®; at the same
time, the State-chest, which in those evil days was always carted
round with the Emperor, so as to be available at need, paid out
twenty aurei to each man, the time-honoured method of winning
over the army*. But the demand of the army that the kindred of
the dead should be spared came too late. The Senate, bitterly
offended by its exclusion from the high commands, and the mob
of Rome, that made Gallienus the scapegoat for all the sorrows of
his time, murdered his relations and confidants, above all, his
brother Valerian (consul in 265) and his little son, Marinianus.
Claudius could do no more than hinder further bloodshed. The
Senate, however, had to consent to consecrate Gallienus; the
temper of the army was such as to commend the step to Claudius,
and the fatres^ naturally, followed his lead.
It was in vain that Aureolus now surrendered to Claudius: he
was at once put to death. All these tragic happenings fell in the
August of 268®. It was a piece of good fortune that the new
emperor was in Northern Italy, for he was thus enabled quickly
1 Zosimus I, 40, 2.
® 2 A)nar^ xii, 25 601); Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxiii, 21, S.H.A.
Ato'd. 16, 1—2.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxm, 28; Efit. xxxiv, 2; cf. P. Damerau,
Kaiser Claudius 11 Gothicus, p. 45. G. Barbieri, Studi ital. di filol. class, xi,
1934. pp- 329 m,-
* The parallelism of Zosimus i, 4^^ 'r®*' Se arpaTtmT&v KeXevaei t&v
^ ovfievav rjcrvxaerdvTwv with S.H.A. Gall, duo IS, 3 sic tnilitihus sedatis
Claudius etc. shows the common source, and makes the narrative of the
Vita credible apart from such fictitious additions as the meaningless con-
demnation of CMIienus’ memory — tyrannum militari iudicio in fastos publkos
rettulerunt.
® A. Stein, Arch. f. Pap, vn, 1923, pp. ‘iosqq.-, Wickert, r/f. col. 362;
for another view see Damerau, op. cit. p, 27.
VI, in] THE DEATH OF GALLIENUS 191
to bring to action and repel the Alemanni (p. 156), who had
already reached Lake Garda. It is probable that he then went to
Rome to pay his respects to the Senate and People^. Certainly at
this stage — if not an even earlier one— an alliance was concluded
between emperor and Senate. After the measures taken by
Gallienus, there must be some real significance in the reappear-
ance of the type of Genius Senatus on issues of Rome with the
Emperor’s titles at the New Year of 269. The extravagant honours
paid to Claudius after his death^ and the choice of his insignificant
brother by the Senate to succeed him are clear witnesses to a
strong bond between emperor and Senate. The lost biographical
history of the emperors, of the middle of the fourth century,
sought to explain the enthusiasm of the patres by the legendary
account of the solemn devotion by Claudius of his own life to the
service of the State, on the model of the heroic sacrifice of the
Decii®. But, in point of fact, that enthusiasm had a far more
prosaic foundation.
Claudius had now a splendid opportunity to attack Postumus.
A little time back, Italy had been exposed to the usurper by the
adhesion of Aureolus ; now Postumus, in his turn, found his rear
exposed to Claudius. The fact that he did not come to the assistance
of Aureolus is indeed remarkable. He was beyond doubt pre-
vented from so doing. For, although it was not till some four or
five months later that he was able finally to dispose of his rival,
Ulpius Cornelius Laelianus, the revolt of the latter may well have
begun earlier. Some idea of this clash of forces is given by the
fact that the mint of Cologne was still striking a plentiful issue for
Postumus for the New Year of 269, while the legion XXX
Ulpia of Vetera (Xanten) went over to Laelianus and both Mainz
and the capital Treves, where his coins were struck, also joined
him^. Laelianus was shut up in Mainz and died when the city
was taken; but Postumus himself, when he denied his barbaric
troops the satisfaction of sacking the city, had to pay for his
refusal with his life. It is remarkable that at so appropriate a
moment the legions of the Rhine did not return to their allegiance
^ Damerau, op. at. p. 58. Cod. Just, in, 34, 6 does not imply that
Claudius was still in Rome on April 25, 269.
^ Damerau, op. cit. p. 81.
® Aurelius Victor, Cues, xxxiv, 3-7; Epit. xxxiv, 3-4. The emphasis on
the effective consultation of the libri SibylHni belongs to the anti-Christian
polemic of the Senate in the late fourth century, overstressed in the Historia,
Augusta.
* See Germania xxi, 1 937, pp. 95 sqq., where the name of the mint is to be
•C0fhecfod.^:i :S5'":;:::=:k£:'
192 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
to Claudius, but preferred to set up M. Aurelius Marius and,
after his death in a few months, M. Piavonius Victorinus.
In Rome, the plan of reealling Gaul to its obedience was for a
moment debated, but Claudius decided, rightly, that the exter-
mination of the East Germans in Illyricum was a more serious
duty^. So to Illyricum he went. But he thrust into the south of
Gaul an expeditionary force, commanded by Julius Placidianus,
who soon afterwards was made Praetorian Prefect. The vexilla-
tionss and cavalry serving under him maintained their position
near Grenoble, doubtless in order to facilitate the hoped-for
advance of Claudius with the main army. They actually succeeded
in restoring communications with Spain, which, on the evidence
of inscriptions, acknowledged Claudius. But when Augusto-
dunum (Autun), not far to the north, closed its gates and called on
Claudius for aid, Placidianus could not save the city, after a siege
of seven months it was forced to surrender at discretion to
Victorinus^. By that time Claudius was probably already dead.
Claudius gained one more decisive victory over the Goths, who
after the victory of Gallienus had continued to be hard pressed by
Marcianus, and then directed the ‘ mopping-up ’ process from the
imperial palace in Sirmium, until early in 270 the plague took
him from the Empire’s service.
The Senate, reawakened to energetic action by the policy of
Gallienus (p. 183), anticipated the army in its decision. The
authorities deserve full belief when they tell us that the brother of
the dead Emperor, M. Aurelius Quintillus, was chosen emperor
by the Senate. He seems to have been in command of the
flying column which had to protect North Italy against the
German invasions. It might be supposed that he went direct to
Rome, to present himself before the Senate; but he never reached
the point of distributing the promised largesse to the people of the
capital, and the actual news of the proclamation of Aurelian found
him in Aquileia.
The armies had at first accepted the election of Quintillus, as
the issues of the mints of Milan, Siscia and Cyzicus show; only
Palmyra broke away (see p. 1 79). But he was a very insignificant
person, entirely unversed in State affairs, and his collapse at the
first shock proves that he would never have had the energy on his
own initiative to grasp at the purple. The common soldiers hardly
knew him and abandoned him the moment that a popular general
became a candidate for the throne; it was soon revealed, too, that
the generals could not have backed his proclamation. AU the
^ Zoiiaras xii, 26 604). , ^ For details see Damerau, op. cit pp,
VI, IV] CLAUDIUS AND QUINTILLUS 193
more remarkable in its contrast is the praise of the pro-senatorial
historians of a later age: ‘Unicae moderationis vir et civilitatis,
aequandusfratrivelpraeponendus'^; but even they had to admit
that owing to the shortness of his reign he did not amount to any-
thing. He was in fact intended to be a tool of the Senate.
C^intillus was, of course, anxious to win the favour of the
Danubian troops and, as an Illyrian himself, he had the personi-
fications of the warlike Pannoniae placed on his issues of Milan;
the types of Genius Illyirki) and Dacia Felix likewise seem to have
been prepared for him at the same mint, but never actually
issued by him. His dependence on the memory of his elder
brother is shown by his assumption of the name of Claudius; the
issues in honour of Divus Claudius (Gothicus) at Milan and Rome
began in his reign and served the same purpose.
When Aurelian rose against him in Illyricum in April 2 70, his
armies at once abandoned him and he was driven to commit
suicide. Aurelian spread the report that Claudius had designated
himself and not his brother as successor^ and, soon after his
proclamation, had coins of Divus Claudius struck in Siscia and
Cyzicus for purposes of propaganda, a clear evidence of the same
intention. In actual fact Aurelian, and not Quintillus, stood in the
succession of Claudius as representative of that Virtus Illyrici that
was destined to save the Empire.
IV. THE CHIEF POLITICAL FACTORS
The general development of the imperial autocracy has been
described elsewhere (chap, x), but it is here in place to note
how the consummation of a long process, which was bound to be
reached in the third century, was hastened by successful or un-
successful usurpations and the violent deaths of emperors. It
became clear that the Senate could no longer secure stability for
the throne, and that it must have another foundation than legalistic
traditions, highly as these continued to be regarded. What was
first needed was a religious basis, and as Juppiter Optimus
Maximus became dim, men turned to this or that Eastern God
temporarily in the ascendant, until at last, under Aurelian, ‘Sol
dominus imperii Romani ’ embodied the idea of a unifying deity
to correspond to the sole earthly ruler of the world (]p. 3°9)*
A dangerous rival to this claim was the equally monarchical and
^ Eutropius IX, i a, reflected in S.H. A. Claud. 1 2, 3 and Orosius vii,'23, 2.
® Damerau, op. a#, p. 90. ; .
194 the crisis of THE EMPIRE [chap.
universal idea of the God of the Christians. Decius and his
successors had striven to place in the foreground, not the divinity
of the emperor but the divine power that shielded him, and with
this came the possibility that the idea of the divine favour might
remain, but that the pagan gods might give place to the one true
God.
It is, however, important to realize that the extraordinary
emphasis given in these disastrous times to the fabled bliss of the
Golden Age which the emperor brings with him is closely con-
nected with the struggle of the State against Christianity. This
becomes at once clear when one considers the overstressing in the
official propaganda of the blessings conferred by the restitutor
orbis and by the emperor, as salus generis humant, and to the
emphatic protests raised in the other camp^. The saeculum novum
with all its glories, advertised by the issues of Decius and Gallus
from Antioch, was, in fact, a pitiful age of disasters; yet, if these
issues are to be believed, each ephemeral emperor was destined
to bring in a Golden Age, in which peace eternal reigns; the
hapless sons of Gallienus must each be the leaders of the new age,
as ‘novum lovis incrementum’^, and, during the terrible invasions
of the end of the reign of Gallienus, ‘ubique pax’ the coins say®.
The Christians, however, needed to be recalled to the enjoyment
of this marvellous age of bliss*. This doctrinaire creed was, of
course, a blank contradiction of the hard reality, but there was no
other redeemer who could be matched against the Christian.
When, under Gallienus, Augustus is called ‘deus’, instead of
‘divus’j as before®, the meaning is that Augustus really is a god,
not a dead man, as the Christians say. This theological trans-
figuration of the person of the emperor and, even more so, his
direct deification, had originally been in sharp conflict with the
old humanistic conceptions and, above all, with the mentality of
the Senate. Now, however, the opposition of Christianity made
the worship of the emperor a part of the policy of the patriotic
conservatives, and so it remained until paganism had drawn its
last breath.
The absolutist Empire never allowed its subjects to share in
real political or constitutional decisions. At best, complaints
might be brought before the All-Highest by the Senate in the
^ Aifsldi, Siscia, i, 1931, pp. 20 sqq.
® Id. iVa», Chrm. 1929, pp. 266 sqq,
® Id. Zeitschr.f. Num. xxxvin, 1928, pp. 183
* Acta Cypr. i. (R. Reitzenstein, Sit%. d. Heid. Akad. 19 1 3, no. 14,
pp. nzsqq.). ® See Volume of Plates v, 236, /.
VI, IV] THEOLOGICAL CLAIM OF THE EMPEROR 195
Curia or by the masses at the games, iri the gentle disguise of a
formal litany^; decisions were taken in the ‘silentium’ of the
palace by a court clique. But, as the autocracy still rested, how-
ever much by anachronism, on the fiction of a conferment of
official competence by the Senate and as this conferment could
obviously only happen after the pretender to the throne had
proved his claim by success, the real choice must first of all be left
to the free play of forces. Thus the retention of the old political
forms, with their Republican colour, at the changes of emperor
left considerable room for the conflict of political forces in the
Empire, — especially as, in the twenty-four years between the
deterioration of the situation at the end of the reign of Philip and
the beginnings of Aurelian, there were some thirty proclamations
of emperors.
No separation of these risings into legitimate and illegitimate
can be made. For from the very first the act by which the
supreme offices of State were conferred was of minor importance
when dealing with the candidates backed by the armed forces.
And, as often as continuity had not been secured by the ad-
vancement of the emperor’s real or adoptive son, difficulties in-
evitably arose. Dynastic sentiment, developed by transference of
this kind, had been strong enough to guarantee the succession by
fictions of a pious or even of a repellent character (as in the cases
of Hadrian, Elagabalus and Severus Alexander) — and could
guarantee it even to children like Gordian III; in our period, too,
there was still recourse to it®. But the storms of the age would not
permit of the introduction of a sure, dynastic succession. The
decisions lay with those who carried the sword. Thus the patres
had been forced to declare Decius a hosHs publicus, for only so
could Philip protect his rear when he marched out against him;
but the tables were soon turned, and Decius was welcomed with
an extravagance of delight as ‘optimus princeps’ — a Trajan come
again (p. 166). The same thing happened once more with Gallus
and Aemilianus®. Nor had the Senate even to pay for its change of
tone; its recognition was regarded as a mere formality. Never
once did the Senate protest when the man whom it had legiti-
mized was killed, but prudently consulted the wishes of his
successor. The strict adherence to principle shown by a Senate un-
compromisingly true to Republican tradition in the third century,
is no more than a fond illusion of the partisans of the Roman
1 AlfSidi, XLix, 1934, pp. 79 ■'; /
2 So Aemilianus, Joh. Antioch, nag. 150. (F.H.G. iv, p. 598.)
® Aurelius Victor, XXXI, 3. - i , - r t '
196 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
aristocracy of the late Empire, as mirrored with peculiar clarity in
ths. Historia Augusta.
But it would certainly be a grave mistake to deny to the
Senate of the period under review any kind of political import-
ance. It not only reacted with notable energy against the attempts
to thrust it aside and appointed emperors of genuine senatorial
sympathies on other occasions than in 238, but it was able, in 270
and 275, to command even greater authority and consent than
before, because the anarchy and bloodshed caused by the violent
changes on the throne had taught the army the useful lesson that
the maintenance of continuity in the constitution must be shielded
and respected. Not only did the solemn election of Tacitus fall to
the lot of the Senate but Quintillus, before him, was the Senate’s
tool. One may even go further and say that the close sympathy
between the patres and Claudius (p, 191) seems to have had a
history behind it; not without reason does Orosius^ say of him:
‘voluntate senatus sumpsit imperium.’
Nor must it be forgotten, that the candidates whom the
soldiers raised to the throne, who, after all, were almost without
exception senators down to 260, were quite capable of maintain-
ing a completely senatorial programme and temper, as, for
example, did Decius and Valerian. Most of the other creatures of
the army, too, were full of expressions of respect and reverence
for the Senate. Philip in a moment of discouragement wished to
return his authority to the Senate, though he had not received it
from them (p. 93). The example of the disaster of Maximinus
Thrax likewise played its part in putting the fear of the Senate
into the soldier-emperors. They made all haste after their procla-
mation to make pilgrimage to Rome and to pay their respects to
the patres. Aemilianus, for example, represented himself as
executor of the Senate’s will.® When in this age the stamp of
senatorial authority (s.c.) appears on gold and silver coins where
the right of issue had from the first been reserved to the emperor,
as for example, under Callus, Tacitus and the Tetrarchy or when
under Gallienus and Claudius in the issues of small change in
Cyzicus and the still unnamed mint in western Asia Minor the four
proud letters s.p.q.r. are advertised with full ofiicial approval,
the facts tell their own story.
The contrast between the enhancement of honour and the
decline of actual power is highly significant of an age in which
symbolical and abstract values prevailed over reality. In this
case, for example, the more than ornamental part played by the
Senate as a supreme authority at the election of Emperors was
^ TO, 23, I. ® ZonarasXH, 22 591).
THE SENATE
VI, IV]
197
questioned by no one, least of all by the soldiers of Illyricum, who
felt themselves to be carrying on the traditions of old Rome; but
all its other political functions had been completely lost. As a
constitutional instrument it had been treated with tact and tender-
ness by the emperors from Augustus onwards, but its participation
in State affairs had been continually whittled down and its functions
transformed into formalities. Unimpaired, however, stood the
reputation and influence of its members as governors and generals,
until Commodus began to have them represented by knights in
the provinces and a practice, begun as an exception, became the
rule. Gallienus excluded senators from the high commands by his
permanent agentes vices'^ and restricted their employment as civil
governors : he thus appears in this field, as elsewhere, as completing
a long process of evolution. It was not the soldier-emperors, it was
the incapacity of the senators that accelerated the process : ‘militiae
labor a nobilissimo quoque pro sordido et inliberali reiciebatur’^.
The permanent state of war called for hard professional soldiers
at the head of the troops, not spoilt gentlemen of the capital.
If in spite of this exclusion the Senate still remained something
more than a relic of ancient glories, the fact must be credited to
the great landed possessions of the senatorial families, which were
not so completely ruined by the bankruptcy of the State and by the
inflation as were the money fortunes of the middle classes. The
album senatorium of the late Empire shows an uninterrupted high
position of many of the great families of the third century. It was
obviously this economic strength that nerved the Senate to a
new political effort in defence of Italy and its heritage of culture in
the fifth and sixth centuries. Even in the crisis of the third
century it was due to these wealthy lords, that in Rome itself the
continuity of the traditions of classical art was not broken and that
important treasures of literary and philosophic humanism were
handed on to the next age. Again, it is to the reaction of the
Seriate against revolutionary Christianity that the visible quicken-
ing of the old Roman religious sentiment in Rome itself in that
dark time was due.® It was the emperors of genuinely senatorial
temper, like Decius and Valerian, who were the natural enemies of
the Church.
But it was not to the Senate alone that the emperor was bound
by the ties of an honoured tradition : the idle mob of the capital
1 P. Lambrechts, La Composition du Sinaf romain , . . (Diss. Pann. i, 8)
pp. 98 sqq., with references.
2 Paneg. in (xi), 20, i. Cf. also O. Seeck, Go/ob. des Vntergangs der
antiken Welt ii^, pp. 26, 478. ; .<
® A. D. Nock, Harv. Tkeol. Rev. xsm, 1930* PP- ^ 7 ?-
igS THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
must receive the customary tokens of respect and favour. With
what care the precise scope of imperial generosity in Rome was
recorded in our period is still shown by the exact list of congiaria
in the Chronographer of a.d. 354. But, under the sole rule of
Gallienus (and, simultaneously, under Postumus), the systematic
count of the benefactions of the August! on the coins ceases,
and the representation of ‘liberalitas’ only continues for a time
as an empty form, to disappear almost completely after Aurelian.
The attempt to win the favour of the citizens now recedes
behind the bid for the support of the soldiers by largitio^. It was
the abrupt changes on the throne rather than the old importance
of the capital that still enabled Rome to witness brilliant festivities,
such as the processions that glorified the advent of the god-
emperor or the dazzling shows at the periodic imperial festivals.
The accounts in the Historia Augusta of the pomp and glory
displayed at the decennalia of Gallienus may not all be true, but
they certainly preserve many genuine characteristics^.
Decius in his day beautified the capital by his completion and
dedication of the Thermae of Commodus®; he may also have
built a portico^ and restored the Colosseum®. But even then the
fortification of the City demanded first attention. There is no
reason to question the statement®, that he was busy on plans
for the fortification of Rome. Any considerable building activity
was then interrupted by the plague that began under Gallus, by
the constant absence of the emperors and by financial distress and
war. The Arch of Gallienus of 262, erected after the custom of the
age to celebrate the decennalia of the emperor, was a private
dedication of a simpler character’'.
Despite all this, the wars of these decades hastened a change in
the function of Rome in the State, that had long been preparing.
Now that the emperor must be near the field of war, permanent
imperial residences grew up at or behind the front so that Rome
ceased to be the centre of political life. The free development of
the conception of the emperor had as its corollary: ‘where the
ruler is, there is Rome.’ Hand in hand with this final loss of
political privilege went the crystallization of the abstract idea of
the eternal supremacy of Rome. It is no accident that at this very
moment the idea of the primacy of the Roman Church received
^ See below, p. 221 sq.
® A. von Domaszewski, Rhein. Mus. LVn, 1902, pp. 510 s^.
* G. Costa, Diz. Epig. ii, p. 1488. Platner- Ashby, J Topographical
Dictionary of Ancient Rome, pp, 52S
* Platner- Ashby, op. cit.p. 421. ® Ib. p. 6.
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxjx, u ’ Plamer- Ashby, op. at. p. 39.
VI, IV] THE POSITION OF ROME 199
its final shape from Cyprian who voiced the idea of the ‘ Cathedra
PetrV^\ the guard at this shrine of human culture was already
being relieved.
Beside this decline in power of the old vital centre of the
world-state stood the rise of the army as a factor in politics. Its
right to share in the election of the emperor had long been estab-
lished by custom, and it now found vigorous expression in the
ceremonial of inauguration. But from the time that Septimius
Severus and Caracalla shortsightedly abandoned the traditional
reliance on the Senate and proclaimed their dependence on the
soldiers, it was the temper and will of the army that must prove
decisive in filling the throne. But as the Italians had long since
disappeared from the army and the educated classes in the inner
provinces had likewise ceased to take any serious part in its
recruitment, the word now rested with the sons of the border-
provinces. What, in the end, determined their attitude was not
really the military point of view, but the atmosphere of their
native lands, their nationality and the degree in which they were
permeated by Roman influences.
A notable role was played by the Osrhoenian archers, who from
the time of Caracalla formed a regular part of the Imperial forces
(p. 216). The proclamation of the first Uranius under Severus
Alexander^ rested on their support; but, on the other hand, they
with the other Syrian archers formed a strong backing for the
Syrian emperors® and for Philip the Arabian, and, after the death
of Severus Alexander, tried to displace the candidate of the
Pannonians by an emperor of their own (p. 73). When a special
issue of coinage under Callus celebrates the chief god of the
Osrhoenians Aziz* who was identified with Apollo Pythius, it
was in honour of this important arm of the service. The valour of
the Osrhoenians in 260 in battle with Shapur enables us to realize
clearly their military, and consequently their political, value. The
whole career of Odenathus and his family is but one reflection the
more of the might of these Oriental archers.
Another important corps d^ilite consisted of the Moorish
javelin-men, who had given open support to the elevation of their
countryman, Macrinus; and the proclamation of Aemilianus, tooj
a Moor of Girba,® must have stood in some relation to the rising
^ E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, i, pp. 77 sqq.
2 Syncellus, p. 674 (ed. Bonn). ® Herodian vni, 1,9.
* Alfoidi, Fjelnik hrv. arh. drmtva, n.s. xv, p. 223 rj. For another view
see K. Pink, J.D.J. 1 . ui, 1937, p. 104 sq. See Volume of Plates v, 234;7’.
® [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxi, i (wrongly referred to Callus, cf. von
Domaszewski, Die Daten der 14, n. 4). , >
200
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
reputation of his fellow Moors. The usurpation of the Moorish
officer, Memor, under Galiienus and of the Mauretanian Satur-
ninus under Probus are further practical examples of the same
thing.
But the armies of the Western provinces took a much more
serious part in the making of emperors in this period. The notion
of the Historia Augusta^ that it was the civilian Gauls (Gallicani,
Galli) who were the originators of the separate empire of Western
Europe, though still deeply rooted in the historical literature of
to-day, finds no support in the genuine tradition. The civil
population of that age was not at all inclined to risk its life for a
separate Gallic Empire; and it was a Roman and not a Gallic
programme that Postumus and his successors announced (p. 187).
But the army, to which they owed their rule, was not disposed to
leave unguarded the Rhine frontier, which was its home, and to
fight in distant lands; it was for that reason that it repeatedly
elected emperors of its own. The bitter results of this separatism
have already been seen.
The real decision in the election of emperors lay, from Severus
Onwards, with the Danube army, of Illyro-Celtic stock. From the
time of Decius the sons of Illyricum themselves often reach the
throne, until with Claudius it became the rule for more than a
century that the emperors shall hail from the Danube countries.
It was the supreme good fortune of the Empire that this folk was
completely romanized (vol. xi, pp. 550 sqq^ and, despite the
fearful devastation of its own lands, was resolute to fight for the
majesty of Rome in all quarters of the Empire. Beginning with
Decius and continuing down the line of his Pannonian successors,
the Genius Illyrici is displayed as a new revelation of Roman
patriotism, Roman virtue and Roman self-sacrifice, — as was only
just, for it was Illyricum that restored the unity of the Empire.
This lilyrican supremacy represents at the same time a last
advance of the West against the preponderance of the East. If
the Latin language could make itself at home in the East, if the
Roman conception of the State could take firm root, and if a new
Rome could be founded there, it was the efforts of the new ruler-
caste of Illyricum that deserve the credit. This r6le fell, above all,
to the Pannonians as can still be recognized, though the Dacian
regiments played a distinguished part, while Moesians and
Thracians had their share in the great task of restoration.
On the other hand it must not be forgotten that the encroach-
ment of army influence_^on political life involved pernicious con-
sequences. Apart from the fact that the movements of the army
1 S-H.A. Gall, duo, 4, 35 Tjr. trig. 3, 3-4, 6, 9; th. 5, 2, 5.
VI, IV] THE ARMY AND THE ILLYRIAN EMPERORS 201
in themselves produced severe pressure and serious disturbance in
the life of the civil population involved, apart, too, from the heavy
financial burden of the chronic state of war, an original error of
the Principate had bad results. From the Julian house onwards, at
every change of emperor gifts of money were made to the troops to
secure their loyalty and, after 193, these developed into a system-
atic purchase of military fidelity, which contributed largely to-
wards a revolution of economic life (cf. p. 221). The large gold
pieces of Gallienus, with the legend ‘ob fidem reservatam’^,
express only too clearly the purpose for which they were issued.
Such were the forces that determined who should be made
emperor. But it would be a grave mistake to see their effects in
isolation. They crossed one another in a hundred different ways.
Decius, the Pannonian, was the pride of the senatorial party;
other Illyrians, like Claudius and C%intillus, though plain soldiers
and not senators themselves, were nevertheless helped on their
way to the purple by the complicity, or, it may be, by the direct
will of the Senate. Valerian, Regalianus® and other men of
consular rank owed their elevation to the army, and that same
army remained unswervingly loyal to the high-born Gallienus in
his later years. Nor did the high birth of Gallienus prevent him
from cutting down the privileges of his senatorial peers.
The Praetorian Prefects still played their ominous part in the
rise and fall of emperors, as, for example, Heraclianus in 268.
But this position was now only exceptionally a step to the throne,
as earlier with Macrinus, and later with Florian and Julianus.
Until the year 260 it was an apple of discord between the sena-
torial governors; after that date one commander of the new
cavalry corps after another — Aureolus, Aurelian and Probus —
grasped at the succession. It is easy to understand why Dio-
cletian abolished a position of such dangerous strength.
Yet another force that raised up pretenders by the score or
brought about their overthrow lay in the psychological malaise of
despairing mankind, seeking its redeemers and hurling its scape-
goats to destruction. The aspirants to the throne showed neither
scruples nor any sense of responsibility. Decius, the conservative
senator, cannot be cleared of this reproach by all the tendencious
stories of heathen literature (cf. p. 222 below), any more than can
the other ‘constitutional’ rulers, like Valerian. They were as
guilty when they clutched at the purple as were the rough soldiers
who rose from the ranks, or the men of the Eastern border-lands.
In revolt against Gallienus rose his own creatures and familiars,
1 Alfoldi, Zeitschr.f. Num. xxxvii, 1927, p. 210. ^ ■
^ H. Dessau, Zdischr^ fi Num. xxii, 1912, p. 201 s^. i ‘ .
202
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE
like Ingenuus, Postumus, Aureolus, Claudius and Aurelian — all
highly-skilled soldiers, or, finally, his father’s confidant, Mac-
rianus. The loyal spirit of an Agrippa was for ever lost. Only very
slowly was the balance against this wild orgy of personal ambition
and adventure restored by the sound political sense and earnest
Roman sentiment of the Illyrian peasants. When after the
exclusion of the senators, in 260, the officers from the Danube
countries following the equestrian career came more and more to
monopolize the highest commands, the election of an emperor was
gradually restricted to them.
V. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH
Soon after his accession Decius took in hand a persecution of
the Christians. In this there were several stages. First came
measures against the leaders of the Church, beginning with the
imprisonment of the Bishop of Rome, who was put to death on
January 20, 250. There is evidence to show that the persecution
was pressed more severely in March, but the third stage of more
decisive action must be placed in June, since the many certificates
of having made sacrifice to the pagan gods that have been found
in Egypt were all issued between June 12 and July 15. This
reflects the carrying through of a new measure providing that all
subjects of the Empire, from small children to the priests of the
pagan cults, must be registered as making an offering, and the
enforcement of this order was controlled by the whole machinery
of the Roman administration. The penalty for recalcitrancy was
death, though the magistrates only imposed it where they failed by
persuasion or threats to secure obedience. The acta of the martyrs
compiled for the purpose of edification and in a set literary con-
vention do not afford, in general, trustworthy evidence, but there
is no reason to doubt that the number of those who suffered for
their faith was large (see below, p. 521). Porphyry, a pitiless
enemy of Christianity and a well-informed contemporary, declares
that in the persecutions of the middle of the third century
thousands were put to death^. That a still larger number of
confessores were left alive is to be explained, not only by the leniency
of the magistrates but by the dying down of th^ersecution due
to the Gothic war about the end of the year 2 50. The firm stand of
these confessores greatly impressed the Christians who had yielded,
and the organizing skill, political tact, and determination of the
clergy in the restoration of the Church was a potent factor in
^ Cf. P. de Labriolle, La riactim patent, p. 285 sq. On the number of
the martyrs see P. Allard, Rev. des questions hist. n.s. xxxiv, 1 905, pp. 235 sqq.
Vr, v] THE DECIAN PERSECUTION 203
recovery. But it cannot be doubted that the general result might
have been far different had Decius not met his death in battle and
had he been able, with iron hand, to persecute not for a year but a
decade, and leave no breathing-space to the Church.
It is in place here to consider what motives impelled the
Emperor to turn executioner. It is true that the Christians were
exposed to penalties before Decius, if they were denounced, and that
before his time there had been sporadic persecutions (pp. 515 sqq.^
654 sqq^. The hatred of the mob against Christianity was of old
standing, and if the Christians saw in the worship of the heathen
gods the cause of the troubles and evils that beset the world, it
cannot be doubted that the pagans repaid them in their own coin.
At the end of Philip’s reign Origen could declare that wars,
famines and plagues were attributed to the increasing number of
the Christians^, and even that the cessation of persecution was
made responsible for the disorders that followed. The feeling of
the mob was whipped up by agitators from the lettered classes as
in Alexandria and elsewhere. Thus there was a widespread
popular hostility to the Church which might well induce Decius
to act. It is also not impossible that the Emperor bore in mind
that the strongest supporters of his predecessor had been the
Eastern archers, among whom the partly Christian Osrhoenians
played a leading role. His own power rested on the soldiery from
Illyricum where Christianity had made hardly any progress.
Finally, his good relations with the Senate urged him along the
path of persecution. Thus to other motives may be added the
general direction of policy that followed his accession.
It may further be pointed out that the Christian community
was ever more strongly claiming to be an imperium in imperio.
Despite the humanity and tolerance of the Roman State, the
Church was resolute to yield no whit of its ideals in order to obey
the Roman laws. Thus was removed the possibility of an under-
standing, and the claims of the Church to dominion, illustrated
by the illusion that certain recent emperors had even been
Christians, were too high to admit of reconciliation. Immediately
before the Decian persecution Origen had declared that Christ
(and therefore also His followers) was stronger than the emperor
and all his officers, stronger than the Senate and the Roman People®.
He looked for a day when the heathen cults should disappear and
loyalty to the sovereign be no longer attested by pagan cult-acts.
This does not, he argues, mean anarchy as even the barbarians
will lose their savagery through the teaching of the Church. It is
1 Contra Celsum, 2, 79. ® lb. 3, 15.
204 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
thus true of Decius that his opponents prescribed for him in full
measure the principle of his action^.
Finally, the change that had converted the Principate based on
Republican and juristic concepts into an absolutism which rested
on a theological basis made the claim of the emperor to worship
wholly irreconcilable with the claim of the Christians. In the
view of the present writer, the offering demanded of the Christians
by Decius was something other than an expiatory supplication of
the gods, and its purpose was not to restore thepw deorum but to
attest loyalty to the Emperor, whose reign was assumed to bring
divinely-ordained happiness in which an attempt to deprecate
disaster had no place (p. 194). Indeed, to declare the need for
world-wide offerings to appease the gods would refute the courtly
insistence on the Golden Age which the ruling emperor was
supposed to restore to earth. For in this period the sane logic of
mankind had yielded to such idealizing theories. The primary
purpose of the offering was the welfare of the emperor and it
was a matter of subsidiary importance what god received it; this
was no innovation but was in the tradition of the Empire^. Only
the precise registration of those who make offerings and the
certificates were new. Furthermore, the anniversary of Decius’
proclamation as emperor fell about the middle of June, and the
offering ordered about that time (p. 166) may be regarded as the
traditional expression of loyalty on this occasion. In the early
Empire, needless to say, such offerings to the Emperor-Saviour
were spontaneous, and compulsion was employed only in the
absence of goodwill or in times of great danger. But what was
once offered in gratitude from below was later on commanded
from above. This test of loyalty, as the sources show, was eagerly
welcomed by the pagans, who might well regard refusal as a
denial of the general goodwill to the sovereign inspired by the
occasion. The idea of the renewal of felicity on earth by the
Saviour-ruler clashed with the Christian doctrine — ‘tempora
Christianis semper, et nunc vel maxime, non auro sed ferro transi-
guntur’®. It seems, therefore, that by such action Decius was de-
termined to demand religious ways of expression of loyalty towards
the emperor, and this is further emphasized by the appearance on
coins of Decius of the busts of all the consecrated emperors^.
^ H. Lietemann, Gesch. der alte Kirche, ii, p. 165.
® Reasons for this view, which goes beyond the scope of the present
chapter, are gven in Klw, xxxi, 1938, pp. 323x5'^.
® Tertullian, de cultu fern, ii, 13, 6. The direct reference is to women’s
ornaments, but he plays upon the idea of the imperial Golden Age.
* See H. Mattingly iny.R.S, xiv, 192^, p. 9 and Num. Chron. 1924,
pp. 210 tqq \ Volume of Plates v, 236, a-i.
VI, V] SACRIFICE A TEST OF LOYALTY 205
Under Decius’ successor, Trebonianus Callus, there were
signs of an approaching persecution, but hardly had the new
emperor decided upon it than he died. Callus, too, began with
proceedings against the Bishop of Rome, Cornelius, who was
arrested and banished, as was, soon after, his successor Lucius.
He too next proceeded with measures against the clergy, but did
not reach any general persecution^. It can be asserted with con-
fidence that Callus did not renew Decius’ order for a universal
act of sacrifice, and what traces of such an act there are must be
attributed to the local initiative of a governor^. It has been pointed
out that such an order need not be regarded as exceptional, and
may, as that of Decius, have been connected with some imperial
anniversary^. It is, thus, at least hazardous to regard Callus as
having simply continued the policy of his predecessor and his
death left unrevealed how far he intended to carry his attack upon
the Church.
It was not until 257 that a new persecution was launched, this
time by Valerian. The bishop Dionysius of Alexandria in laudation
of Callienus^ set himself to find a foil to that emperor as the
author of the later toleration, and chose for this purpose the rebel
Macrianus rather than Valerian, who after all was Callienus’ father.
Yet Valerian had been Decius’ chief lieutenant, and it is hardly
probable that he did not share his hostility to the Church, so that
it may be conjectured that it was only his pre-occupation with the
dangers of the Empire that delayed his action. Macrianus' part in
the persecution may be reduced to his activity as chief finance
minister {curator summarum rationum\ whose administrative
machinery was involved particularly in the confiscation of Church
property (p. 207). If then the decision really lay with Valerian,
the reason for it is not far to seek. August 2 57 found him with a
whole series of defeats to his discredit, and he sought to turn
popular indignation against the Christians and avert it from him-
self. The acta of Cyprian and works of Dionysius of Alexandria
afford excellent evidence for the character of Valerian’s actions.
The State demands no more than the minimum of obedience, not
that the Christians should abandon their faith but that they should
add to it a willingness to respect old-established religious for-
malities. In the words of the governor of Africa — ‘qui Romanam
1 Statements of Cyprian which have been taken to refer to such a persecu-
tion are to be interpreted rather as a call to resistance should it be demanded.
2 Cyprian, Ep. 58, 9; 59, 6.
® The view that there was a general order which took the form of a
supplication to Apollo salutaris becau^of the pestilence that had broken out
is not here accepted.
* See Eusebius, Hist. EccL vn, 10, 2-9 and 22, 12—23, 4 *
2o6 the crisis of THE EMPIRE [chap.
religionem non colunt, debere Romanas caerimonias recognos-
cere.’ And it was made clear that this recognition is imperative
because it attests loyalty to the sovereign. The defence of the
Christians takes up this point— the Christians do not cease to pray
for the welfare of the emperors, but can only do so to the one true
God. In the words of Cyprian^ — ‘nullos alios deos novi, nisi
unum et verum Deum — huic Deo nos Christiani deservimus,
hunc deprecamur diebus et noctibus — et pro incolumitate
ipsorum imperatorum’^.
The persecution began, as under Decius, with the arrest of the
leading churchmen, but then followed a different course. The
main body of believers was not called to book, but meetings for
religious purposes and entry to the cemeteries were forbidden
under pain of death. Around these cemeteries, particularly in the
Catacombs, workshops and rooms had been formed for the social
life and administration of the Church, and it was here that in
Rome the bishop Xystus and his deacons together with many
clergy and laity were arrested and then put to death. It is sur-
prising that Dionysius of Alexandria and Cyprian, despite their
manful recalcitrancy, were at first visited only with exile or at
worst, deportatioj but their reprieve was short. In a year came a
new rescript ordering the immediate execution of the clergy;
highly-placed Christians who clung to their faith suffered con-
fiscation as well as death, while the Christians of the imperial
household and domains were punished with defortatifi. The
humbler folk, so long as they did not disobey the former edict or
provoke the magistrates to action, were left untouched. The
persecution cost many lives and continued till the death of
Valerian^. But, though it lasted three years, it did not overthrow
the Church. The disciplina Romana^ which for centuries had held
in its grasp the civilized world, could not prevail over the divinitus
tradita disciplina^ of Christianity. Herein was to be the secret of
victory — in the iron calm and Roman pride with which a Cyprian
faced death, in the resolution with which the Roman see claimed
to lead the whole Church amid the terrors of persecution, in the
unswerving discharge of spiritual duties and the care for the
oppressed and the poor in days of constant peril.
When Valerian was taken prisoner by the Persians, Gallienus,
in this as in all else, broke with his father’s policy (p. 1 84 ^y.). His
^ Jcta Cypr, t, %. ® Cyprian, Ep. 80, i.
® The news of Valerian’s capture could have been known in Rome by
July 22, 260 (see above p. 172). In the East the persecution continued
somewhat longer till the fall of Macrianus, cf, Eusebius, Hist. EccL vii, i o, 9.
* Cyprian, de lapsis, 5.
VI, Y] VALERIAN: GALLIENUS’ TOLERATION 207
first decree has not come down to us, but only the Greek transla-
tion of a rescript to the bishops of Egypt^ in which he extended his
concessions to that country after the fall of Macrianus (a.d. 261)
and of Aemilianus (262). The imperial decree which gave freedom
and security to the Faith and its adherents and restored to the
communities their places of worship and cemeteries was of funda-
mental importance. Christianity was now pronounced neither
outside the law nor against the law. When the Emperor acted on a
petition from the bishops, he admitted that they possessed a legal
status, and in giving back the property of the Church he con-
firmed the legality of its possession. It is true that his murder was
followed by a violent reaction, but his action pointed the way to
the final solution. The organization of the Church was able to
advance, and in a favourable moment an emperor like Aurelian
was prepared to admit the competence of the bishops of Rome and
Italy in an ecclesiastical question (see p. 303).
When Gallienus decided to end the policy of persecution and
the tradition it implied, it was not that he failed to recognize the
danger to the Empire of the Christian movement or that he lacked
the will and ability to carry through a Roman policy of restoration
planned by Decius and Valerian. Such a judgment of his capacity
is the fiction of late historians. The explanation of his action is
rather that he realized that Christianity could only be cured
by treatment, not by the knife, and it was his hope that in the anti-
Christian polemic of Neoplatonism, the outcome of the intellect-
ual circles in which he moved, might be found the antidote that
was needed to bring about the cure®.
In the short reign of Claudius II there are recorded a host of
martyrdoms. The acta that tell of these are late and not above
suspicion. But they are not to be wholly set aside, for they are
concerned with executions in Italy and it was here that the reaction
against Gallienus was most violent, so that a change of policy
towards the Christians was to be expected. Claudius, who
enjoyed the confidence of the Senate, was for that very reason
inclined to persecution, even though the Gothic war and his own
death hindered him from taking part in it. Although he and his
immediate successors did not resume the policy of persecution on
a large scale, they preferred to ignore Christianity in a hostile
spirit, rather than to continue Gallienus’ real toleration of the
Church. Yet it was not in their power to undo what he had done
or to counter its consequences.
^ Eusebius, Eff/. VII, 1 3.
® See A. Alfbldi, FiinfmdiswatKdg fahre Rom.~Germ. Komm. pp. 17 sqq.
See also below, p. 230.
2o8
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE
[chap.
VI. THE ARMY AND ITS TRANSFORMATION
Until the middle of the third century and even for a time
thereafter, the legions remained the backbone of the Roman army,
and their number was increased by Septimius Severus (p. 17)
and, though less notably, by some of his successors^. More than
half the army, to the number of 200,000 men, consisted of
legionaries, and throughout the century the best of these were
drafted into the cohorles praetoriae. The most valiant and warlike
soldiers of that time were the Illyrians, and these supplied the
majority of the legionaries, and, after Septimius Severus, of the
Guard. Their political predominance reflects that of the legions,
which, as the use of vexillationes became the rule instead of the
exception, provided the best infantry and a part of the cavalry for
a new mobile army, so that in the wars of Aurelian and even
somewhat later the great military creation of Rome still brilliantly
proved its worth, though indeed it no longer was the sole decisive
factor.
Although Septimius Severus confirmed the right of the
soldiers to a family life and allowed them to lease ih&prata legionis
(p. 32) it would be a mistake to suppose that thus early the
legionaries became settlers by compulsion like the barbarians
who were then planted behind the limites. The Illyrians were,
indeed, a peasant stock, yet they left their farms to become
soldiers and fought the battles of the Empire from end to end of
it, especially in the many campaigns of the middle of the century.
But before the reforms of Constantine the legionaries, like the
frontier cavalry, had come to be regarded as peasants tied to their
farms®, and this implies that in the preceding decades the legions
had been transformed into a settled and hereditary frontier guard.
The great wars of the middle'of the century, the pestilences that
visited the Empire and the loss of men carried off in the wide-
spread barbarian invasions had exhausted in the Illyrians the last
source of romanized man-power, so that Constantine no longer
relied upon them. Further, with the constant withdrawal of the
best troops to serve in the mobile army, the garrisoning of the
frontier sank to a secondary r6le that was entrusted to barbarians
and semi-barbarians.
In the period of the great military crisis Rome had to meet
enemies who had shown superiority in the field, and the need to
match their methods undermined the tactical supremacy of the
I H. M. D. Parker, J.R.S. xxra, 1933. p. 176.
® Jm. ipig. 1937, no. 232; S. Paulovics, JrchaeoL Htmgarka xx.
VI, vi] THE LEGIONS 209
legion. This was not due to any failure of the Illyrians, who were
no less suited to maintain the Roman art of war than the Italians
had been. They were simple peasants, but the fact alone that they
supplied most of the centurions of the army at this time shows
that they were well able through years of service to train them-
selves in Roman discipline and skill of manoeuvre, and they were
inspired by the spirit of Rome (vol. xi, pp. 540 .yyy.). But the
countless forced marches of great range were merely hindered by
the old Roman practice of fortifying camps at the end of each day.
Caesar had long before realized how hampering the heavy
legionary armament could be in the face of a nimble and mounted
enemy^, and now, in the third century, the infantry tactics and
weapons of the legions were clearly shown to be out of date. A
hint of this may be found in the fact that Macrinus had sought to
increase the mobility of his troops by taking away their breast-
plates and heavy shields^. Further, now that the enemy, both in
East and West, trusted to long-distance missiles or sudden cavalry
attacks, the pilum, which was designed for use against close and
comparatively immobile masses, lost its effectiveness and disap-
peared in the third century, and with it the short sword, which
was replaced by the long spatha of the auxiliaries and the German
enemy, together with the lance®. But new equipment, suited to
the fighting of the time, had already been supplied to other
formations, as was indeed inevitable now that cavalry was be-
coming more important than infantry.
As the old tactics lost their hold, discipline naturally declined.
But more grave was the effect of the disappearance of suitable
personnel. The level of education began to sink during the third
century, especially among the officers, where it is more danger-
ous. The exclusion of senators from a military career did more
harm to the civil service than to the army, but the disappearance
of the Italian officers of equestrian rank in this period meant an
irreparable loss, and inevitably lowered the cultural standard of
the whole hierarchy. Whereas earlier principalis marked out to
be centurion had already in the bureaux of his superiors acquired a
thorough knowledge of all sides of the service and had also proved
himself in military administration, the army officer in this epoch
was a mere man of his hands^, and in the fourth century often
an illiterate.
1 Bell. Gall v, 16, 2-4. ® Dio lxxix, 37, 4.
® P. Couissin, Les armes romaines, pp. 471 sqq.
* A. von Domaszewski, Die Rangordnmgdes rotn. Heeres, p. 42; cf. G. L.
Cheesman, The Auxtlia of the Roman Imperial Army, p. 99. ,
210 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Next come the regular auxilia. In order to understand the later
development it is important to stress the fact that in the second
century these had not so wholly lost their national character as
might be thought. Though Trajan’s Column shows many
auxiliaries in uniform Roman equipment, advantageous as that
could be, their organization and way of fighting were less assimi-
lated to those of the legions than has been supposed. Such an
assimilation was hardly possible for the cavalry, which in the
legion played a subordinate role, and it is not an archaism when
Vegetius^ declares that there was a marked difference between
auxilia and legions — ‘alia instituta, alius inter eos est usus
armorum.’ The motley groups of fighters with their special kinds
of dress and arms that also appear in these reliefs are not all to be
regarded as ‘irregular’ formations.
In the second century national peculiarities in the practice of
war were highly appreciated,^ and barbarian formations had even
been made out of romanized personnel. To take one instance, the
ala Ulfia contariorum civium Romamrum used the long thrusting
spear of the Iranians® to meet the Quadi who fought in the
Sarmatian way, and the tactics of the Sarmatians and Alani,
together with their use of the wedge-formation in attack, were
practised in the army^, and there was even made an ala I Gallorum
et Pannoniorum catafr aetata for use against these enemies. Hadrian,
in particular, who had studied the barbarian ways of fighting, will
not have contented himself with allowing the use of national war-
cries by the auxilia. This is obvious so far as the numerous cavalry
regiments and infantry of the Oriental bowmen are concerned;
nor can Rome have dispensed with the admired dexterity of
the Batavians, the much-copied cavalry manoeuvres of the
Spaniards or the skill of the Moorish javelin-men. National
methods of fighting became even more important in the third
century. There are new archer formations and an ala nova firma
milliaria catafractaria in competition with the Parthians and
Persians, To the variously equipped troops that have been
mentioned may be added, for instance, the ala of camelry, the
cohortes scutatae Hispanorum and other formations, even cavalry®
armed with the scutum. It is even possible that the half-naked
Germans on Trajan’s Column were regular troops like those
cohorts which were disbanded after the rebellion of a.d, 69 —
‘ Germanorum . . . nudis corporibus super umeros scuta quatien-
tium’®.
^ Vegetius, re milit. 2, 2. ® Arrian, Tact. 33, 2. ® Ib. 4, 4.
* Ik 4, 3; 7; 44, I, ^ Ib. 4, 4. ® Tacitus, Hist, n, 22.
VI, vi] Tm JUZILU in
The practice of filling up the auxilia with recruits from the
region in which they were stationed militated against the main-
tenance of their national character, but the practice was far from
uniform. It has been shown that in the third century the Oriental
bowmen received recruits from their home countries^ as also the
ala nova of cataphracts^. At the beginning of that century the
cohors III Balavorum mtlliaria^ which had been stationed in
Pannonia for a long while, still made dedications to its tribal
goddess Vagdavercustis®, and so must have retained its national
character. Soldiers’ sons joined their fathers’ formations and
thus assisted a continuity of race that must not be underrated.
However much the auxilia might be romanized, there were
openings for national characteristics, especially when, as early as
Hadrian, arose the fixed institution of the numeric which were
separated off, not because of their alien character but because of
their special functions in the strategy of that emperor.
Hadrian’s strategic conception, that is, the police supervision
and fixing of the frontiers in the unyielding line of a single
cordon instead of a defensive battle-zone in depth, was inspired by
high civilizing ideals; but it failed to meet the military needs of
the Empire and led directly to the collapse of the defence in the
stern times of the third century. The Roman army was far too
small to guard the whole line that encircled the world-empire. To
fill up the gaps Hadrian created the numeri as a kind of militia
which cost less than the troops of the line, were worse equipped
and not trained to equal efficiency.
For a while these served their purpose and their presence was
attested on almost all the frontiers, sometimes supported by first-
line troops. But the peoples within the Empire soon failed to
supply men to hold the gaps in the defences, the more as inva-
sions, especially those of the Germans, ever more often broke into it.
At the same time, the constant elaboration of the defensive lines
called for more garrison troops. The result was that the late
second century already saw the first settling of barbarians from with-
out the Empire, who were no longer organized as numeri. It was
still possible to follow the old pattern and place these new settlers
under officers such as fraejecti gentmm\ as for example the gens
^ G. Cantacuzene, Mus. Beige xxxi, 1 927, p. 1 59 ; H. van de W eerd —
P. Lambrechts, Laureae jiqumcenses, 1938,
® P. Goessler, Germania XY, 1931, pp. to sqq.
® Alfoldi, "Pannonia'' i, 1935, p. A. W. Byvanck, Mnem. Sen ra,
vol. V, 1937, p. 320.
* R. Cagnat, Uarmie rotnaine d’Afriqu^, pp. 263 sqq.
212 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Onsorum who have been newly posted under z.-praepositus in Lower
Pannonia at the end of the second century^, and th.e dediticii
Alexandriani settled at Walldiim on the Rhine under Severus
Alexander.^ The like control was exercised over the Ghatti who at
the end of the second century were transplanted to the. castellum at
Zugmantel in the Taunus with their families and goods^. In the
third century, too, the frontier troops were often reinforced by
prisoners of war and fugitives from enemy countries, but at times
it became necessary simply to admit a client State within the
frontier line, as is shown by the settlement under Gallienus of a
king of the Marcomanni on the limes of Upper Pannonia.
The numeri gained little from this barbarization of the frontier
garrisons. Despite their entire or partial lack of romanization
they were put under Roman commanders and officers^, yet the
soldiers who served in them were not only dediticii and gentiles^
but, unlike the other Imperial troops, they did not receive
citizenship after the completion of their years of service. None the
less, they became romanized to a considerable extent®, and this
process was assisted by their later recruitment from the inhabitants
of the part of the front allotted to them. The rise in their status
(from the Roman point of view) is reflected in the fact that as late
as the third century several numeri were advanced to be cohorts
and alae. On the other hand the value of the citizenship had so
fallen that men from Emesa and Palmyra who had become cives
Romani could be used to form numeri^ \ even among the gaesati of
Tongres citizens are found'^.
As early as the end of the second century bounties were pro-
vided for those auxiliaries whose sons carried on their trade of
arms®, and in the third this duty was imposed on them. Even
earlier than the auxilia the soldiers of the numeri were tied to the
soil. It has already been noted how this military peasantry®
became barbarized both in and after the ravages of the years of
^ Ritterling, Germania, i, 1917, p. 132.
® C.LL. XIII, 6592. E. Fabricius, Hist. Zeitschr. xcviii, 1907, p. 22 sq.
® R.von VIII, 1934, PP.61J77.; id. Klio,XKViii,
1935, pp. 294175^.; W. Schleiermacher, Germania, xxi, 1937, pp. 22 sqq.
Cf. the German officer Leubaccus at this place, C.LL. xiii, 7613 a.
* von Domaszewski, op. cit. pp. 59 sqq.-, Rowell, P.W. s.v. Numeri, col.
1336 i?.
^ E, Stein, Beamten und Truppenkorpery pp. 236 sqq.
® J. Carcopino, Syrm^ vi, 1925, p. 127, xiv, 1933, pp. 'lo sqq.i Rowell,
0p, ciL col 1334.
^ CJ.L. XIII, 3593. ^ xvi, 132 and H. Nesselhauf, ik p, ii8*
^ RostovtzefF, Sm. md Mem, Hist^ pp* 375 sqq, ■
VI, VI] THE NUMERl 213
crisis. Under the Tetrarchy it was a matter for congratulation if
by any means men could be found to continue this service^. Their
fixed settlement and the principle of local defence, to which they
owed their existence, used up the numeri. They disappear from the
military system after Diocletian, having either perished or else
been changed into other formations. The new strategy demanded
instead of the Hadrianic numeri the revival under another name
of Trajan’s irregulars.
The system of the inelastic frontier cordon and the ranging
along it of the whole military strength of the Empire broke down
as often as serious attacks were launched upon it. But this second-
century idea was too deeply rooted in the whole conception of the
State for it to be abandoned. That would have meant the sacrifice
of the Roman element in the frontier provinces, which at that
time did most to uphold the Empire and so could not be reduced
to a mere glacis or field of operations. As early as the second
century there were efforts to make good the exhaustion of man-
power by the strengthening of the frontier fortifications^, and after
the German and Persian invasions there was fresh activity in
improving the castella and building new defences. In this
Gallienus was as active as Postumus and, later, Diocletian and his
successors. But though they clung to the traditional method of
defence the emperors could not evade the demands of a new situa-
tion. If the Empire was to be kept secure, it was necessary to
return to a grouping of the armies in depth, and the constant
wars of movement made indispensable an army that was ever
ready to take the field and was independent of the frontier line.
These two needs led to the creation of a new mobile army which
was normally posted at important points behind the frontiers.
As the new conception of defence prevailed, it conferred increased
importance on the significant strategic points of Italy, especially
on Aquileia®, Milan* and Verona, the two latter receiving under
the sole rule of Gallienus the name of colonia Gallieniana on the
score of the building of new fortifications®. The minting of money
and manufacture of arms were removed to these or other great
military centres, as also troops including newly organized corps.
About the middle of the century vexillationes from Danube
legions are found in Aquileia®, where they formed a standing
1 Paneg. vin (v), 9, 3-4. ® Carcopino, Syria, vi, 1925, p. 143 sq.
® A. Calderini, Aquileia Romana, 1930, pp. 52 sqq.
* C.LL. xni, 6763: cf. Ritterling, P.W. s.v. Legio, col. 1336; Dessau
1188 (a.D. 242). , . _ ^ ,
® Dessau 544, 6730. , , . ® von Domaszewski, of. cit. p. 187.
CRISIS GF THE EMPIRE [chap.
camp. This appears to have been a defensive measure taken by
Philip, who in other respects also strove to protect North Italy^.
Mobile detachments of the Upper Pannonia legions stationed at
Aquileia later became regiments of the field-army and were
transferred to the East^. The commanders of these mobile units
were fraefositus or dui?\ thus the Aurelius
Marcellinus, who directed as dux the work on the fortifications of
Verona in adj", was also the commander of such detachments.
Vexillatianes of the Eastern legions came to North Italy in con-
sequence of the victory over Macrianus (p. 185) and when
Aureolus went over to Postumus in 268, they seem to have been
detached by the latter to Gaul (possibly against Laelianus), as
their names appear on the gold struck at Trfeves by Victorinus*.
Gallienus posted mobile troops not only south but north of the
Alps. Vexillationes from Germany and Britain are found at
Sirmium in Pannonia in the period of his sole rule®. At the same
time, the two legions withdrawn from Dacia (p. 151) were
established in Poetovio at the crossing of the Drave, thus barring
the road that led to Italy®. In like manner a detachment from the
legions at Albano and Lambaesis was posted at Lychnidus on one
of the chief roads that lead to Greece’. Thus there can be no
doubt that Gallienus went beyond what had hitherto been
attempted and devised a far-reaching strategic scheme to break
the waves of the barbarian invasions. It may be that the vexil-
lationes from Lower Moesia and Pannonia that are found in
Dalmatia in the third century belong to the same setting. The
^ Parker, A History of the Roman World, p. 156.
® Ann. Spig. 1 9 1 2, no. 89 ; Not. dign. Or. vn, 7 (= 42), Or. vin, 7 ( = 39) :
cf. Ritterling, op. cit. col. 1686^5'. The corresponding positions of both
legions in the Notitla show, as Ritterling has pointed out, that they originally
made up a double formation. They can therefore only be the detachments
from North Italy. Cf. also Dessau 1 332.
® C.I.L. VI, 1645. N. Vulid, Spomenik of the Serb. Acad, txxv, Class 11,
58, 1933, p. 58, no. 176. Cf. also L. de Regibus, Historia ix, 1934, pp.
456^77. _
* P. H. Webb, M.-S. v, ii, pp. 386 sqq. 5 cf. Ritterling, op. cit. cols. 1 344,
1375. For other views see J. de Witte, Rev. num. 1884, pp. i()'i,sqq.\ A.
Blanchet, Mus. Beige, xxvn, 1923, pp. 169 sqq. and Rev. num. 1933, p. 228;
Sir C. Oman, Num, Chron. 1924, pp. K'\sqq.\ H. Mattingly, Trans. Inf.
Num. Congr. 1936, pp. 214 sqq.
® Dessau 546; cf. C.I.L. ni, p. 2328^®^.
® B. Saria, Strena Buliciana, pp. 249 sqq. Further literature is given in
Alfbldi, Die Gotenhewegungen md die Aufgabe der Provmz Dacien, see above,
p. 138 n. I.
’ Vulic, op. cif, for another view, Saria, Klio, xxx, 1937, pp. 352 sqq.
VI. VI] THE NEW STRATEGY 215
troops on this mobile footing were of course used also in offensive
operations, as for instance the advance to Southern Gaul under
Claudius II.
Some emperors after Gallienus may have regarded this separat-
ing off of mobile troops as a transitory innovation, but he can
hardly have done so. At all events, the continuous state of war
often prevented the vexillaliones from returning to their parent
legions on the frontier, and what began as exceptional continued
till it was confirmed in the definitive new organization of Dio-
cletian and Constantine when the detachments became legiones
comitatenses or falatinae in the mobile army (p. 398)^. The general
rule of having two legions in each province, to which Severus and
Caracalla gave effect, brought it about that these legionary
<vexillationes appear in pairs as a combined unit; this practice, also
applied tactically, remained an essential part of the late Roman
army organization.
Whereas this system was defensive in motive and was still half
based on the infantry of the old order, the frequent wars of
movement caused cavalry to come more into favour. It is true
that at the beginning of the century it was firmly and widely held
that the strength of the Roman army lay in its infantry and close
fighting with spears, whereas the Parthians were distinguished by
their cavalry and long-range archery®. As late as 238 Maximinus
drew up his army for battle with the square of legions and
auxilia as its main strength. But even the cavalry had come to
play a more decisive r6le than Kis ordre de hataille would suggest.
The Moorish javelin-men with their small shields, riding bare-
backed, had already become famous in Trajan’s wars, and in the
third century from Caracalla onwards they once more came to the
front®. Under Macrinus or Elagabalus they are commanded by a
tribune of the Praetorian Guard*; being thus regarded as ilite
troops, they can hardly have been reduced to the grade of numeri
but remained irregular formations. Under Macrinus they were
effective against the Parthians® and in combination with the
Oriental archers they contributed greatly to the successes of
Severus Alexander and Maximinus against the Germans of the
Rhine. The former brought large forces of them to the West®.
^ E. Fabricius, op. cit. p. 28. ® Herodian iv, 10, 3
® Dio Lxxix, 32, I (p. 440, Boissevain).
* C.I.L. vm, 20,9965 cf. Ritterling, op. cit. col. 1327*
® Herodian iv, 15, i.
* Herodian vr, 7, 85 vii, 2, 1-25 vni, i, 2-3; Zonaras xii, 15 (p. 573)5
S.m.A. Max, duo 2 , j—g. ^ “
2I6
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Philip’s defeat of the Carpi was due to their impetuous attack, and
then they appear with Valerian against the Persians, though at the
same time Gallienus used a Moorish corps against Ingenuus.
Finally, they fought with success against Palmyra under Aurelian
(P- 303)-
The other important specialist troops of this period, the
Orientah archers, seem to have been mainly cavalry, armed with
the most dreaded weapon of antiquity, the composite bow of the
Iranian and Turkish nomads^. The best archer regiments after
Caracalla’s annexation of their country were the Osrhoenians.
Caracalla used them against the Germans, probably as irregulars®,
and so too Severus Alexander and Maximinus : they distinguished
themselves in the war against Shapur. Finally, the heavy cavalry
of the Iranians, with their long spears and armour both for man
and horse®, were used in the Roman army especially after the
increasing conflicts with Persia, in which, indeed, the enemy, too,
were driven to adopt Roman tactics^. Orientals were used as
catafractarii because of their long familiarity with this kind of
fighting®.
Such were the new kinds of troops which were at Gallienus’
disposal when he decided to break with tradition and bring
cavalry into the foreground instead of infantry. But it is signifi-
cant that he did not rely primarily on these when he organized
mounted regiments on a new model®. Doubtless he realized the
danger to the State if he placed this new instrument of war in the
hands of the Moors and Orientals, and so he had recourse to the
unexhausted man-power of Dalmatia and created the equites
l>almatae. Since, after this army had been disbanded, the
Notitia Dignitatum always mentions the equites Mauri, the equites
fromoti and equites scutarii with the Dalmatian regiments, it is
fairly certain that Gallienus grouped them together, converting
into new corps d' elite the Moorish javelin-men, and also the con-
centrated legionary cavalry {promottf and the scutarii, who must
^ J. Werner and K. Stade, Germania xvii, 1933, pp. 1 10 and 289. This
bow is described in Ammian. Marc, xxii, 8, 37.
® C.l.L. XI, 304; but see Dessau 2540, where a ''numerusMosroenorum' is
mentioned.
® See vol. X, p. 61, vol. xi, p. 119 sq. Volume of Plates iv, 26^ and v,
150. Cf. F. Altheim, Epochen der rom. Geschichte n, p. 198 sq.
^ Herodian in, 4, 9.
® Goessler, op. cit pp. 8 sqq,
® Cedrenus, p. 454 (Bonn) ; cf. Ritterling, Festschr. fur 0 . Hirschfelds 60.
Geburtstag, pp. 345 sqq.
’ Ritterling, op. cit. p. 348.
VI, n] SPECIALIST TROOPS: THE CAVALRY 217
have used a distinctive way of fighting. This far-reaching re-
organization was made in a.d. 258 (p. 182). The coin-issues show
that the official designation of this whole cavalry force was simply
equites and that it was posted at Milan under Gallienus, as also
under Aurelian^. At th.t decennalia of Gallienus it is put on a par
with the Praetorian Guard, and this shows that it was a real house-
hold corps under the direct command of the emperor. From this
time onwards its commander was the most powerful subject of the
Empire, though only of equestrian rank. Claudius seems to
have held this post after the rebellion of Aureolus®, and this
agrees with the fact that he is described as second only to the
emperor. After him Aurelian and then Probus (who was called
Equitius) used this position as a jumping-off place to the throne.
It is important to observe that this cavalry army acted as a
unit wholly independent of the infantry; thus it won the victories
over Ingenuus and Macrianus. But even later this separation
continued, as in 269 against the Goths, where friction between the
two arms almost led to a serious disaster. Here, too, the Dalma-
tians did much to secure victory, as later in the Eastern wars of
Aurelian. In the battles before Antioch and near Emesa the
equites played their independent rSle. Once the cavalry army had
so brilliantly proved its worth, and while so much remained for it
to do, Aurelian can hardly have broken it up and distributed its
units over the East. It is more probable that this was done by
Diocletian®, to destroy the central political importance of their
commander. At some time before a.d. 293 the name veaillationes,
which had been used of legions of the mobile army^, was trans-
ferred to mounted detachments®, which may be regarded as
being parts of the cavalry army. Diocletian also restored the con-
nection of the fromoti with the legion, but this only lasted for a
time®.
After Gallienus Aurelian doubtless did much for the re-
organization of the army. It seems, he strengthened the catafractarii,
who are also called clibanariL For on the Arch of Galerius at
1 Alfoldi, Zeitschr. filr Num. xxxvii, 1927, pp. 198 sqq.
® Zonaras xir, 26 (p. 604).
® von Donaaszewski, Westd. Zeitschr. xxi, 1902, p. 188 fj. 5 id. Die
Rangordnung, p. 192, note i. For another view Ritterling, op. cit.
* So late as 269; see Dessau 569 '^vexillationes adque equites' C.l.L.
vni, 9045, 9047 do not refer to these. Cf. Carcopino, Syria vi, 1925, p. 141.
® Cod. Just. X, 55, 3; cf. E. Stein op. cit. i, p. 92, n. i; Parker, y.R.S.
xxm, 1933, p. 188.
® R. Grosse, Rom. Militargeschichte p. 36; M. Besnier, L’Empire
2X8 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE
Salonica the emperor’s bodyguards ■wear the scale-armour of the
cataphracts^ and the conical helmet {Spangenhelm) typical of the
Iranians, which was then inherited by the Germans of the middle
ages. Their standards are the Iranian dracones— serpents flying
and hissing with the gaping jaws of a wild animal. These may have
been used before by the Thracian auxiliaries® and were employed
in manoeuvres to mark enemy positions^, but they had earlier
been regarded as foreign and barbarian^. It may be taken as
certain that this Persian equipment had established itself before
Galerius’ victories and no emperor had had so much to do with
enemy cataphracts as Aurelian. He had, indeed, discovered the
right tactics and weapons to use against them (p. 303 jy.), but he
doubtless learned to respect the clihanarii of Zenobia and intro-
duced such regiments into his army on a large scale.
Another innovation with far-reaching consequences has been
attributed to Aurelian®. He apparently formed auxUia of Vandals,
Juthungi and Alemanni, and this meant a quite new access of
Germans to the army. There are now found wholly non-Roman
formations, as even earlier a cuneus Frisiorum in Britain. But the
new German auxilia also kept their ancient national standards,
shield-devices and dress, which, as ever more Germans were
enrolled, spread so quickly that by the early period of Constantine
they became regular in the whole army®. As early as the Tetrarchy
the emperor himself wore even in peace time the long trousers,
the once despised bracae of the Celts and Germans. It is probable
that before the century ended the customs of the German warriors,
as the raising on a shield and the crowning with a torque, appeared
at the proclamation of the emperors. All this did not happen
suddenly and without precedent. Caracalla created a privileged
elite force of Germans, the leones, which lasted on, it may be as a
special kind of bodyguard’. Germans had done this service to
the first emperors and the third-century rulers from Caracalla
1 See Volume of Plates V, 150,
® Because they are carried by Thracian horseman-gods; cf. D. Tudor,
Ephem. Dacor. vu, 1937, pp. 209, 217.
® Arrian, Tact. 35, 2 sq.
* For the literature concerned with these standards see J. Dobid§,
Trans. Int. Ntm. Congr. 1936, pp. i 6 <^ sqq. and F. Sarre, Klio nr, 1903,
p. 359. The mention of the dracones in S.H. A. Gall, duo 8, 6 is an addition
by the compiler. For another view see von Domaszewski, Rhein. Mus. xvn,
1902, p. 513 ry.
® Cf. Th. Mommsen, Ges. Schriften vi, p. 282 sq.
® Alfoldi, Germania XIX, 1935, pp. 324 ryy.
’ Dio Lxxix, 6, 4 (p. 409 Boissevain).
VI, VI] GERMANS IN THE ARMY 219
certainly had German bodyguards. The reliefs of the Arch of
Galerius show these as typical.
But the emperors of the third century, though they could not
do without this excellent fighting material, strove as far as possible
to keep the Germans in a subordinate position, as half-free
coloni or third-line soldiers in the numeri or at least attached to
other troops under Roman supervision. It may be that it was
Philip, in whose reign recruits were already notably scarce, who
first admitted them to the regular auxilia. Claudius certainly did
so. But the wearing down of the Empire’s own resources is
shown by the handing over of part of the Upper Pannonian limes
to a German prince under Gallienus or the alliance in the same
period with German kings on the Rhine outside the frontier.
The contingents bought from the Germans under the cloak of a
joedus gradually became indispensable. No hesitation was felt
about enlisting great numbers of irregulars from free Germany.
This had been the practice of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, as of
Caracalla, Maximinus and Pupienus. It was followed by Gallienus
on the Rhine and after him by Postumus. By keeping these
irregulars it was possible to isolate these alien elements and in
fact the Germans did not come to the front politically in this
period because their isolation was effective. But this procedure
meant that the Empire’s gold was constantly drained away. And
as the troops of the line were used up, the irregulars became ever
more predominant and finally became regulars. The world was
upside-down. Yet the guiding of the increasing flood of Ger-
mans in the army into Roman channels marks an achievement
of the third-century emperors.
The great changes in the army were reflected in its hierarchy
and it was Gallienus who made the decisive alterations in its
organization. There is one institution which seems to date from
the beginning of his reign, which was to lead to important de-
velopments, that of the proteclores divini lateris. The model for
these may have been the somatophylakes of the Hellenistic Kings
(vol. VII, p. 9). The Hellenistic ideas that underlay the autocracy
were salient in this period, and Gallienus, though he showered
distinctions on the Germans, still excluded them from the regular
service of the State. This suggests that the first institution of the
protectores is to be distinguished from its later development in
which the direct personal relation of the protectores domestki to the
monarch became tinged with the idea of loyal retainership familiar
to the germanized officers of the court. Another sign of the
change in the position of protectores is to be seen in the fact that
220 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
at first the name marked a distinction reserved for the tribunes of
the Praetorian Guard, the prefects of the legions and the com-
manders of the mobile units, whereas later it was applied to the
whole body of centurions^. The essential feature of the institution
was residence at the Imperial camp as a kind of training as staff-
officers (p. 378).
Gallienus’ exclusion of senators from military service had im-
portant consequences. The creation of so eminent a position as that
of the general of the new cavalry army foreshadowed the office of
magister militum under Constantine. This general, and no less the
army-commanders in the provinces, the praef ecdlegionis^ znd the
praepositi or duces of the vexillationes were equites (p. 377). But the
equestrian order was no longer the old social class of Rome and
the Italians. Even under the early Empire centurions had been
promoted to this rank and Septimius Severus granted all under-
officers the privilege of wearing the gold ring which was the badge
of the equestrian order (p. 1 6). This process continued, and
Gallienus bestowed this rank on the sons of principales and cen-
turions at their birth.®
As this development broke down the old class-distinctions, so
the new strategy deprived Rome of its central importance in
favour of the Imperial headquarters. To these were also removed
the arms-factories^ and the decentralization of coining worked in
the same direction. In this, too, Gallienus broke with tradition.
But the army not only lost its connection with the capital but was
wholly divorced from old ideas of the State. It no longer stood
for the Roman citizen body, and had no feeling for ancient pre-
rogatives, but depended simply on the will of the monarch. This
personal attachment to the Imperator had also much to do with
the change that came over the economic life of the Empire.
The Roman denarius had for centuries possessed a value based
not on State regulation but on its intrinsic worth, and though since
Nero its silver content imperceptibly decreased, it was the founda-
tion of the prosperity of the Antonine period. But in the reign of
Septimius Severus the debasement of the currency was already so
advanced that either it must be checked or account must be taken
of its consequences. Severus adopted the second alternative. He
^ E. Stein, op. cit. i, p. 81 sq. The literature of this subject is to be found
here and in Schenk von StaufFenberg, Die Welt ah Geschichte^ 1, 1935,
p. 81 sq. n. 24..
® Grosse, op. dt. pp. 3 sqq.\ L. de Regibus, op. cit. pp. 451 sqq.
® von Domaszewski, Die Rangordnttng, pp. 34, 42 sq., 54, 61, 80 sqq.
* /i. pp. 25, 46, 109.
221
VI, vi] THE OFFICERS: ECONOMIC EFFECTS
allowed the process to continue, but was able to compensate the
soldiers, apart from an increase in their pay, by granting them the
benefits of a new taxation in kind, the annond^. This new levy
bore hardly on the provincials and induced a far-reaching system
of requisitions. From Septimius Severus onwards the silver
content of the currency fell ^though gradually, until in the
lamentable conditions of a.d. 253 Valerian and Gallienus found
themselves forced to resort to a more drastic debasement of the
currency to get money for the State, and after the catastrophe of
260 the denarius was rapidly replaced by a silver-washed copper
coinage. At the same time the imperial authority attached an
arbitrary value to this inflation-currency, and compelled its ac-
ceptance at this rate; now that the value of money was fixed by
authority, not by the free play of economic forces, the foundations
of the old individual form of life were destroyed. But while no
effort was made to do more for the silver currency than regulate
the inflation-money, gold was issued and put into currency by a
new method. By substituting increases of pay^ for military dis-
tinctions and developing the abuse of presents in gold Severus had
inaugurated a process that was to have far-reaching effects. Apart
from the facts that from his reign onwards the normal issues of
gold were ever more often made to coincide with the periodic
Imperial celebrations and that the gold reserve more regularly
moved about with the imperial court and camp, there now further
developed a peculiar system for the distribution of the gold coins
(which never lost their full metal content). This change is best
seen in the money struck for presents. These gifts became es-
pecially common since the reign of Hadrian and usually consisted
in the second century of bronze pieces of no intrinsic value but
well fitted by their high artistic execution to be presented to
highly placed personages on great occasions. After Severus the
‘medallions’ suited to the taste of a cultivated upper class were
gradually replaced by large gold pieces, which, in striking contrast
to the poverty of the time, had become by the period of the
Tetrarchy heavy lumps of gold. Their types displayed with
growing emphasis their connection with the Imperial festivals.
These largesses, which were no longer designed for the
citizens but for the soldiers, served not only to secure their loyalty
but called forth the traditional religious and emotional expression
of it. It was not undisguised bribery, but was allied with offerings
^ D. van Berchem, Mim. de la Soc. nat. des aniiquaires de France, txxx,
i937> PP- ^ '
^ von Domaszewski, Nsue Held. Jahrh. x, I 90 l> PP-
222
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
and solemnities as was demanded by the spirit of the age. ‘ Liber-
alitas praestantissimorum imperatorum expungebatur in castris,
inilites laureati adibant,’ writes Tertullian^. This development of
the system of presents gained a new impetus as the old conception
of money died out in the second half of the third century. While
the compulsory acceptance of the inflation-money and the growing
contribution in kind deprived the civil population of money of
intrinsic value, the soldiers were provided for not only by payments
in kind but by the presents that accompanied the Imperial
festivals, a process whereby the minister of finance became a
comes sacrarum largitionum.
Despite all this, whoever would make the soldiers alone re-
sponsible for this development, should not forget how these men
served the Empire with their lives. The millions of Italian and
other citizens of the towns merely looked on at the wars, and had
no desire to put themselves in peril for their country. They pre-
ferred to endure the crushing burden of taxation and the oppres-
sion of the autocracy.
VII. THE EMPERORS
First the picture, or rather caricature, presented by the
ancient authorities must be considered. Of Decius there is no
contemporary tradition apart from the Church Fathers, like
Cyprian, who knew him only as tyrannus ferociens. For Lactantius,
this persecutor of the Faith is an exsecrabile animal. The Byzantine
tradition presents a view that looks like a direct answer to such
slanders. That convinced heathen, Zosimus, maintains that he
ruled most admirably and won all his battles. Again, in the story
told by the late Greek sources of his accession, the same tendency
is revealed : the intention is to clear him of the charge of usurpa-
tion. Actually, he had already been months in Illyricum, and had
certainly got rid of the partisans of Pacatianus, when his revolt
began; he could not therefore have been forced to assume the
purple by those same soldiers, in dread of punishment. Nor does it
appear to the present writer to be true that he intended to lay aside
the purple, but that the evil, distrustful Philip would not credit his
intention^. That would be to attribute to this man of iron a course
of conduct actually followed a century later by the soft and servile
Vetranio, or, before him, by the feeble Tetricus. Decius knew
that the purple on his shoulders meant empire or death — in that
knowledge he acted. The same tendency is even more crudely
1 de corona i, i. ® See, however, p. 93 ry.
Vr, VII] THE EMPERORS IN THE SOURCES 223
exaggerated in that pamphlet against Christianity, the Hisioria
Augusta. For it Decius is the ideal champion of the old Roman
position, an embodiment of true Roman virtues. But what is
beyond all doubt is that the Senate always regarded him as flesh
of its flesh and that his heroic death finally silenced all criticism in
these circles and so prepared the way for his later transfiguration.
To excuse the terrible disaster that befell this defender of the old
national religion and morality the sources on which our Byzantine
authorities depend sought a scapegoat to bear the guilt. They
found one in the successor of Decius, the witness of his fall —
Trebonianus Callus. The treachery of Callus, as alleged by our
authorities, is an absurd invention. What was left for him to do,
when all was lost, but to bow to the inevitable and let the Coths
go their way .?
Of the unhappy Valerian the heathen sources, truthfully
enough, have almost nothing good to report; the Christians load
him with abuse. But the Historia Augusta., in its hatred for the
Christians, excels itself and makes this wretched figure a national
hero. The whole vita Valeriani is a reply to Lactantius, who says
of this persecutor — ‘deus novo ac singulari poenae genere
adfecit. . . . Etiam hoc accessit ad poenam, quod cum filium haberet
imperatorem, captivitatis suae tamen ac servitutis extremae non
invenit ultorem, nec omnino repetitus esU.’ Forged letters are
quoted to prove the contrary, and the biographies that follow
Valerian’s in this pitiful production swarm with praises of the
persecutor. All this has no relation to reality.
Never were the historical features of an emperor so distorted as
were those of Callienus. Even in his lifetime, when despairing
humanity demanded the causes of the fearful blows of fate, the
short-sighted naturally sought to lay the blame on the man who
held the rudder of State. Embitterment of this kind helped many
an adventurer to rise against him. Then, when this malaise of the
mind had been mastered, the resentment of the Senate against
him grew ever fiercer. It was in vain that the army tried to repress
the Senate’s fury after his murder: ‘patres. . .stimulabat proprii
ordinis contumelia.’ The fact that so few edicts from the sole
reign of Callienus are preserved in the law books of Justinian
compared with the rather ample material from his joint reign
with his father shows that the patres might tolerate the shame
brought on the State by the father, but could never forgive
their own humiliation by the son. A generation later, it is true,
a panegyrist could still debate whether the instability of the
1 de mart. pers. 5, 15 5, 5.
234 the crisis of the empire [chap.
Roman State under him came from ‘in curia rerum’ or ‘quadam
inclinatione fatorum^,’ but the attitude of the Latin writers was so
completely determined by the views of the senatorial circles that
the unjust verdict became ever more exaggerated as time went
on. This state of mind is represented by the author of the lost
biographical history of the emperors on which our later chronicles
and compendia depend. He found in the sound tradition much
that was favourable to Gallienus, and so he endeavoured to in-
tegrate and harmonize its self-contradictory verdict in a manner
very natural to ancient thought. From the poems of Solon
onwards we find recurring in ancient literature the ethical dogma
that good fortune and prosperity bring men to destruction —
‘mutant secundae res animos.’ The Greeks themselves estab-
lished the formal type of the tyrant, who, after good beginnings,
‘secundis solutior,’ is progressively corrupted: even an Alexander
could not escape such reproaches from moralists. The theme was
in due course inherited by the Romans, and the anonymous
historian naturally followed this scheme in calumniating Gallienus.
But the arbitrariness of his method is soon betrayed by the actual
sequence of the events, which he forces into this artificial pro-
gression from good to eviF.
There is a second literary motif that plays a part with our
anonymous writer in his blackening of the character of Gallienus
— that of the growing effeminacy of the luxurious tyrant; it
passed into the Caesares of Julian and rises in the Historia Augusta
to a veritable medley of ancient commonplaces: Gallienus has
here become sordidissimus feminarum omnium^ There is yet a third
tendency that starts with our anonymous historian : in contrast to
Gallienus he eulogizes his opponents, in particular Odenathus
and Postumus, who brought salvation where the profligate failed.
That is why the chapter on the thirty tyrants is spun out in so
xomzxAxc 2 i style, in tkt Historia Augusta.
In the Greek writers, on the contrary, we find only the
favourable portrait of a humane and illustrious prince. Even
if this may represent no more than the devotion of cultured
Hellenists, such as Dexippus, Porphyry, Callinicus and Longinus,
the popularity of Gallienus among the lower social circles of the
East is still echoed in the fantastic stories told by Malalas. In the
Christian literature of his own age Gallienus was greeted with high
^ Paneg. vin (v), lo, i sqq.‘, cf. ib. vi (vii), 2, 2 on the soluta et perdita
disciplina of that time.
® For details see Alfoldi, Die Gotenbewegungen, etc.
® See Alfhldi, Zeitschr.f, Num. xxxvin, 1928, pp. 156 sqq.
VI, vii] THE PICTURE OF GALLIENUS 225
praises, or even with formal panegyrics. But this note grew
fainter when emperors followed who had become Christians
themselves and thus could easily overtrump the good will shown
by Gallienus. St Ambrose, for example, already takes his full
share in condemning him. The great historian of later Rome,
Ammianus Marcellinus, found on the one hand the verdict:
‘neque Gallieni flagitia, dum urbes erunt, occultari queant, et,
quisque pessimus erit, par similisque semper ipsi habebitur’^;
on the other, the praise of the Greeks. He took over the re-
proaches^, but also admitted, albeit with some embarrassment,
the favourable judgments — in one case, indeed, where the
Greek authority is still preserved®. Now that the research of
recent years has cleared the memory of Gallienus of this coating
of calumny, it can be seen that, this apart, the really weak sides
of the man had been completely forgotten, even his natural failings
can hardly be discerned.
The same senatorial reaction that created this dark picture tried
to acquit Gallienus’ successor, Claudius, of participation in his
murder (p. 190) and to surround him with an atmosphere of
glory and light. Even his insignificant and shortlived brother
received the meed of unstinted appreciation.
Let us now see what the facts in their turn have to say. The
tradition that survives from late antiquity would suggest that the
emperors in these decades had the power to do good or evil, as
their own natures dictated, to act of their own free will. But, in
reality, the path they trod depended on a long and varied series of
premisses. In all departments of life it may be observed how
a secular evolution set the seal on that great crisis of the
Empire, and how the new shape that things now took had had
a long preparation behind it. A few examples must here
suffice.
The development of art is particularly revealing for the history
of civilized States. Here it is possible to trace very clearly the long
lines of connection between the early and late Imperial period.
For instance one can determine the road by which the chief
characteristic of late Roman-medieval painting, the gold back-
ground, was unobtrusively led up to through centuries^. The
change of style in relief-sculpture has revealed how, as early as the
second century, the inability to create new compositions resulted
^ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxiii, 29.
® XXI, 16, 9; XXIII, 5, 3; XXX, 8, 8.
® XXI, 16, 10. Cf. Zonarasxu, 25 (p. 602).
* F, Bodonyi, jlrch, J^rtesito, 1932/3, pp- 197 sqq.
THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
in the old scenes becoming over-crowded by the addition of new
figures. This process means the disappearance of the background,
and perspective loses its raison d’iire. This ‘anarchy of forms’
reaches its climax in this period^, while at the same time economic
stress crushes the great sarcophagus workshops in Rome. The
approaching new order of things can do no more than bring in a
primitively schematic form of composition, and the exhaustion of
the power of composition is followed, about a.d. 300, by the disap-
pearance of technical virtuosity. But the art of portraiture shows,
with peculiar clearness, that during the regression of the organic-
ally conceived portrait to a lifeless schematic generalizing like-
ness, there suddenly, about 260, appears a violent recoil to the
classical. Since this reaction is found not only in Italy but simul-
taneously in the realm of Postumus, it is clear that it is widely
based, and that, though the rulers might favour it and guide it to
maturity, they did not initiate it^.
Much light is thrown on these progressive changes of orienta-
tion by the unbroken sequence of the history of the monetary
devaluation. This shows clearly that about 260 the manipulation of
the silver content of the double denarius that had been going on
for two centuries, accelerated and led to its complete destruction.
Here again it is instructive to draw the parallels between the
course of this process in the regions governed by Postumus and by
Gallienus, as it demonstrates an essential similarity that did not
dependon those two personalities. Thecareerof this debased money
is precisely similar in both areas; at about the same time it sank,
on one side and the other, to be a mere copper piece, coated with
silver. The only difference is that the inflation in Gaul brought
with it a great outburst of private coinage (of a rude and barbarous
character), intended to exploit for itself, instead of for the State,
the difference between nominal and metal value. In the lands
governed by Gallienus this mischief was successfully averted,
except in Rome, where from 268 to 270 similar abuses flourished
though on a more modest scale. On the other hand, Postumus
continued to turn out his aurei at the normal weight, whereas the
procurator of the mint of Rome let the weight of the gold coins
fall so low, that in many issues they were disks as thin as paper.
In other mints, on the contrary, order reigned in this field even
under Gallienus. But the corruption now established was
^ H. U. von Schoenebeck, RSm. Mitt, li, 1936, p. 256.
® Alfoldi, Funfundzwanzig Jahre RSm.-Germ. Komm. pp. 35 sqq . ; G.
Rodenwaldt, Arch. Anx. 1931, cols. sqq. and J.D.A.l. li, 1936, pp.
82 sqq.
VI, vii] GOVERNING TENDENCIES 227
terrible: despite the iron hand of Aurelian each issue of small
change can be seen, for a century and a half, to be diminished in
size in a few months, and there is no pause in the reforms that
simply establish, under old or new titles and denominations, some
normal weight for these coins.
It is possible, again, by following the changes in the representa-
tion of the monarch, to discern the earlier foundations on which
the autocratic constitution was based. Step by step we can trace
the process by which the old emphasis on organic function gives
way to the new stress on outward form. Here again it becomes
evident that the transition was actually made in this epoch of
crisis, and that Diocletian and Constantine only gave clear
definition to what was already accomplished. The displacement of
the cvrAfrincefs by the military is unmasked and seen as
the production of a very long process of evolution.
The centrifugal tendencies that found expression in the rise of
usurpers and undoubtedly slowly prepared the way for the later
separation of East and West, had likewise a course of develop-
ment proper to them. Not only does the need of a second ruler
grow more acute and his competence come more and more to be
associated with a division of territory^. Under Philip and
Aurelian appear administrators of the East as rector Orientis^
fraejectus Orientis\ Valerian had already his own Praetorian
Prefect in the East and, as early as 258, the armies of East and
West were separated — if only for a time. The new capitals of
the Tetrarchy (Nicomedia and Antioch, on the one hand, Milan,
Treves and Sirmium, on the other) justified themselves in practice
as early as our period. In contrast to all this, the process of the
complete unification of religion®, of politics, administration, poli-
tical economy, etc. is at least as old: it begins to mature about
the middle of the third century.
Military developments tell the same story, and it has been made
clear that the invasions of the Germans were only a secondary
result of this weakening. Like a human body that is ageing, the
mighty organism of the Empire sank into a feverish condition,
marked by that acceleration of the course of events that has been
observed, and followed by heavy blows from every side. The move-
ments of the army, famine and devastation brought on that fearful
plague that raged from Gallus to the death of Claudius and con-
tributed largely, with the wars, towards the destruction of such
^ See E. Kornemann, Doppelprinaipat tend Reichseinteilmg.
® See the works of F. Cumont; cf. also W. Weber, Die Vereinheitlichung
der religiSsen Welt {Prohleme der SpStantiket 1930).
228 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
romanized elements as might have had in them the power to
survive^.
There was often no scope for any really free initiative on the
part of the rulers. To take, for example, the laws of the period, one
finds nothing but regulations to alleviate the time’s distress or the
enforcement of compulsory rules, no independent legislation. The
administration likewise was turned from its normal functioning by
wars, requisitioning, or persecutions of the Christians. New
milestones often reflect no lively activity in road-making, but
simply advertise loyalty in the face of the constant pronuncia-
mentos^. But it is no accident that Gallienus after 260 found
himself obliged wholly to abandon road-making. Money and
labour alike were monopolized by the wars.
But, despite limits set by the trend of things, the life and pros-
perity of niiillions still depended on whether the Emperor won or
lost his battles, whether he adopted the necessary measures or not
at a crisis: the part played by the individual must not be under-
estimated. The activity of the ruler was, indeed, at this time
confined to the few main problems of existence®. Apart from
Gallienus the emperors were no more than military adventurers,
the rebels of yesterday. Yet, finding themselves faced by tasks
that transcended normal human capacity, they lived at the highest
tension and speed only to die, for the most part, by the sword.
In judging the achievements of the emperors, must be con-
sidered only those chief actors who had a real historical role and
mission.
Decius was a native of Southern Pannonia. But he is not to be
confused with his successors, who sprang from that province and
were simple soldiers. His family had certainly owned great
possessions; his wife came of a distinguished Italian family. Not
only did he pass through the normal senatorial career, but he
rose to its highest dignities, he was consul and City Prefect. His
administration was not successful : rivals rose against him in Gaul,
Rome and the East. As a general he was a failure — a failure that
made possible and provoked the terrible invasions by the Germans.
Zosimus 1,26, 2; 37, 3; Zonarasxii, 21 (p. 590); Aurelius Victor,
XXX, 25 XXXIII, 5; S.H.A. Ga//. duo 5, 5; Eusebius, Hht. Eccl. vii, 21, isqq.\
Johann. Ant. frag. 151 (F.H.G. iv, p. 598); Cramer, Anecd. ii, p. 289;
Cedrenus i, p. 452, i^sqq. (Bonn); Jerome, Chron.’^. 219, 41??. Helm;
Orosius VII, 21, 5; 22, 2-3; 27, 10; Jordanes, Getica, xix, 104, m.; Vita
Cypr. 9; Cyprian, de mart. 14, 16; ad Demetr. 5, 10; K. Pink, Num.
Zeitschr. 1936, p. 25. H. Oppermann, Plotins Leben, P- 5 i sq-
® H. Nesselhauf, Germania xxi, 1937, p. 175.
® See the anecdote in Zonaras xn, 27 606).
vr, rii] THE TRUE PICTURE; DECTUS 229
His attacks on the Church were not such as to break its power,
but only to shed blood and create mischief. And yet his whole
activity shows his iron hardness, still seen in his portraits^. In
his campaign against the Christians, in his persistence after his
failures against Kniva, in his heroic death, the same abundant
energy is revealed. It was not without good reason that he was
named ‘reparator disciplinae militaris.’ His extraordinary force of
will, his sincere loyalty to the Senate and his death on the field of
honour have transfigured his person and ensured the vigorous
survival of his conception of Roman conservatism and of his
political methods. His reliance on the Illyrians, as representatives
of a constructive patriotism, was justified by the future.
Trebonianus Gallus came of an old Etruscan family of Perusia
and, as governor of Lower Moesia, was assisted by accident to the
throne. His slackness must have been in part responsible for the
ill-success of the campaigns of Decius after whose death he seems
(to judge by what Dexippus tells us) to have taken no serious
steps to check the German invasions. His listless reign contri-
buted largely to mature the ill results of the disaster of Abrittus.
Nor did the revolt of Aemilianus have any other result.
It was a further misfortune for the Empire that Valerian was
now able to seize the throne. He had already (in 253) had a
brilliant career; in 238 he had been a notable defender of the
Senate and, later, as confidant of Decius, had taken a share in
administration at Rome during his absence. His rule was
generally acclaimed with high hopes. At the beginning he did
indeed strive to restore order and it seems that he really was a
good administrator; the whole management of the persecution of
the Christians suggests the skilful politician. It is probable enough
that history would have had much good to say of him, had his
feeble hands held the reins of power in a time blessed with peace.
But the ageing Emperor was quite unequal to those military tasks
that faced him. For eight years in the East he had no triumphs to
chronicle save over the Christians, — against Germans and
Persians he was too irresolute and weak; in the end, his own
hesitancy and impotence betrayed him into the hands of Shapur.
His antithesis — and the contrast grew more and more pro-
nounced — is to be seen in his son Gallienus. At the age of about 35
Gallienus was raised by the Senate to the rank of Augustus at his
father’s request. But his greatness was first seen when he
succeeded in mastering the chaos that followed on his father’s
captivity. Nor did he stop there: with sure hand he gripped the
^ See Volume of Plates v, 186, d. ;
230 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
mechanism of State and society, to carry through those essential
reforms that secured their continuance. Though himself of high
birth he had the courage to make a clearance of desidia oi the,
senators. It was no accident that the Pannonians, who till 261 had
been obstinately disloyal to him, thenceforward served him
faithfully to the grave and after; he opened up to them the road
to the highest positions. Even earlier than this began his far-
reaching re-organization of the army, in which like a pioneer he
showed the way for the future. With unerring insight he chose out
and promoted the great generals of the next age. At the same
time he deliberately furthered the reaction that was setting in to
defend the ancient culture. As for the Christians, his intention was
to fight them with the weapons of enlightenment; in Rome,
Athens and Syria philosophers and men of letters are encouraged
by him to work to this end. Art turns back, if only for a
moment, from its modern primitivism to the classical tradition
of the An tonine period.
He had certainly enjoyed a good education. His amazing
energy and readiness, which was acclaimed as ‘alacritas August!,’
carried him again and again over a succession of terrible blows
and alarms to a swift and right decision. It was the same
elasticity and energy that made him leap up and rush out, when
his murderers lured him out on the pretext that the enemy
were at hand. His achievements as general were above the
ordinary. For seven years he beat back the attacks of the Germans
of the Rhine; he repelled the hordes of Alemanni from Italy
and checked the Heruli and Goths in 268. He overcame his own
talented but disloyal generals, such as Postumus and Aureolus,
and also Ingenuus and Regalianus,
In chivalrous fashion he challenged Postumus to a duel, so that,
instead of thousands, only one of the two should fall. ‘ I am no
gladiator’ is the answer of Postumus. But Gallienus could not be
as merciless as his successors, the soldiers, who ruled ‘manu ad
ferrum ’ (p. 2 9 7). He called a halt to the massacre of the Christians.
Ever benevolent and ready to help, he never repulsed a petitioner;
he even forgave those who little deserved it^. Yet this leniency
had its evil consequences; such as the abuses of the monetarii in
Rome, His dearly loved wife, Salonina, the patroness of Plotinus,
accompanied him wherever he went. Even up to the death of her
husband she was with him in his camp.
Augustus was his model. But, just as the artistic reaction of his
^ Zonaras xn, 25 (p. 602); Petrus Patrldus frag, 163 (Cassius Dio,
ed. Boissevain, in, p. 743).
VI, vii] THE TRUE PICTURE: GALLIENUS 231
age failed to achieve the imitation of Augustan art and could
get no farther back than the baroque of the Antonines, so did the
spirit of the Rome of Augustus at which he aimed end in the
Hellenic patriotism of those Greek men of letters who based
themselves on ideas current in the second century. Amidst
bloodshed and dissolution he sighed for the glories of the older
days: Athens was his Mecca. His contemporaries did not under-
stand him. His kindred and friends were butchered when he fell.
Even before his death misfortune had ever attended him. But
through a crisis of supreme terror he ensured the continuity of the
development of the Empire. He is no type, like the rest, no mere
representative of a kind, but an individual. Between Hadrian and
Julian he stands as a pillar of Greek culture, which thanks to him
still exerts its influence on us. Like Caesar and Augustus, like
Trajan and Hadrian, like Diocletian and Constantine, Decius
and he form a pair of opposites, who together point the way to the
future. As Diocletian returned to the principles of Decius, so did
Constantine realize the ideas of Gallienus, even if unconsciously
drawing the same consequences from a more advanced stage of
the historical development.
Claudius, whose heroic qualities were highly esteemed by
Gallienus and whose career was advanced under him up to the
supreme command of the equites, already belongs with his
successors to those great soldiers of Illyricum, who with unpre-
cedented energy won back the peace and unity of the Empire.
His supreme achievement was the final repulse of the Gothic
onslaught in 268, after chequered fighting. This simple, but in-
telligent and experienced, man had no time in his short period of
rule to display any ideas of his own. His co-operation with the
Senate alone indicates to us a general direction in his policy.
CHAPTER VII
THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE
I. GOVERNING TENDENCIES
T he first century of our era witnessed a definitely high level
of economic prosperity, made possible by exceptionally
favourable conditions (see vol. x, chap. xiii). Within the frame-
work of the Empire, embracing vast territories in which peace
was established and communications were secure, it was possible
for a bourgeoisie to come into being whose chief interests were
economic, which maintained a form of economy resting on the old
city culture and characterized by individualism and private enter-
prise, and which reaped all the benefits inherent in such a system.
The State deliberately encouraged this activity of the bourgeoisie,
both indirectly through government protection and its liberal
economic policy, which guaranteed freedom of action and an organic
growth on the lines of ‘laissez jaire^ laissez aller^ and directly
through measures encouraging economic activity. In fact, the State
did all in its power to facilitate an increase in the numbers of the
bourgeois population and of the cities throughout the Empire.
In consequence, the productive economic centres became more
numerous, and under conditions of free competition economic
activity itself advanced, and achieved, on occasion, forms of large-
scale production which approximated to monopoly. The large
number of separate economic centres within a world-wide Empire
in which busy highways bound the whole together resulted in a
marked interdependence between the various parts of the Empire,
and also between the Empire and foreign countries. Regions
of primary production (raw materials) on one side, and regions
where the processing of raw materials was systematically or-
ganized on the other, with different kinds of economic specializa-
tion at different centres, led to a lively reciprocal interchange and
Interpenetration, which, in their turn, caused a high degree of pro-
sperity especially in the cities. There was thus a vigorous, if limited,
economic development — limited both by an ultimately agrarian
character and by a capitalism whose nature was non-progressive.
These limits had ' been fixed by the decentralization that began
as early as the first century of our era, by the difficulties inherent
in the problem of labour resources, by the permanently unstable
VII, I] THE PROSPERITY OF THE FIRST CENTURY 233
character of non-agrarian economy owing to the inadequate de-
velopment of large-scale credit institutions, and also by the outflow
into foreign lands of precious metals in large quantities, and, to
some extent, by the first beginnings of State-socialism, which
slowly gain a footing during the first century.
The economy of the second and third centuries is the continuous
organic development of the features observed in the first, including
both the actively progressive and the retarding elements.
There was further advance especially in the liberal economic
system, based on private enterprise, and rooted in city-bourgeois
culture. This development is connected with the fact that external
conditions remained constant. Indeed, the field open to economic
enterprise actually grew larger towards the close of the first cen-
tury and during the second. New territories in Britain, on the
eastern bank of the Rhine, on the lower Danube and beyond that
river (Dacia), in Asia Minor (in the direction of Commagene
and Armenia) were annexed. The line of the Euphrates was
reached and crossed, Transjordania and Arabia Petraea were
incorporated in the Empire, and the frontier in north-west
Africa was advanced southwards. Moreover, in other regions,
where direct occupation was not attempted, the Empire was
suzerain, as in the Bosporus (Crimea), and in Palmyra, where
Roman troops were stationed in the second century to guard the
interests of Rome. For a time this extended empire was still
mostly at peace, and its communications secure. The numerous
colonial wars of the period, one of whose effects was in fact to
extend the sphere of economic activity, caused no particular dis-
turbance, nor did the minor and occasional political complications.
The elaborate system of communications was enlarged as new
territory was occupied, old and new roads were maintained,
improved, and extended, as the numerous milestones show. Gar-
risons protected the key-points on the lines of communication,
police-troops guarded travellers by land, river, and sea. Tter
conditum per feras gentes, quo facile ab usque Pontico mari in
Galliam permeatur’ are the words used of Trajan’s achievement
in the field of foreign policy^, and it was Trajan, in all probability,
who created the Red Sea Fleet. Nomad tribes on the borders of
Africa and T ransjordania were induced to settle down and so become
peaceable. Thus the imperial coinage, and writers such as Dio
Chrysostom or Aelius Aristides could repeatedly celebrate the
world peace, and its effects on economic life and well-being, and
1 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xm, 3.
234 the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Aristides is not far from the truth when (in his encomium of
Rome, delivered in 156) he declares that ‘every Greek and
barbarian can easily traveT to whatever destination he chooses,
and that neither the Cilician Gates nor the tracks of the desert
need make him afraid^.’
Moreover, the long peace continued not only beyond the frontiers
but also within the Empire and thus maintained, especially under
the ‘constitutional monarchy,’ the social and economic position of
the bourgeoisie. For economic policy remained liberal. If we pass
over the normal State-socialist element and the normal intervention
of the State for purposes of control (see p. 2 j’y sg,), such as are to be
found under the most liberal r%imes, and if we disregard the special
position of the emperor, who as the private owner of domains and
of large-scale concerns manufacturing bricks and textiles, occu-
pied an intermediate position, the old basic principle that the
chief economic unit was not the State but the individual remained
for the time being true, and was applied mutatis mutandis even in
Egypt. Free trade prevailed in actual fact, as what custom dues
there were did not hamper commerce. The State indirectly pro-
tected, and directly encouraged, economic progress.
The reasons for the expansion of the Empire were not wholly
military, but partly economic. Just as the possibilities of exploitation
had been among the motives behind the Nubian and Arabian ex-
peditions of Augustus and the occupation of Noricum, so now
British lead and tin, Dacian gold, and the rich land in Africa, in
the Decumates agri, and in the Wetterau, drew the Romans on.
Commercial interests had their say in the incorporation of Trans-
jordania and Arabia Petraea, in the conversion of Doura into a
fortress (by L. Verus), and even in the rivalry with Parthia. The
Roman garrisons which were posted to protect Olbia, Cher-
sonesus, and Palmyra were designed largely to further a com-
mercial policy. The construction of several roads or canals in
Egypt, in the approaches to the Caspian, in Bithynia, in Africa,
and in Britain were inspired by the same motive. In this connec-
tion Trajan’s canal linking the Nile and the Red Sea is very im-
portant; and the improvement in harbour facilities (another
reform with which Trajan is specially connected), and the creation
of a fleet on the Red Sea have also a background of economic
policy. The circumnavigation of the Black Sea by Arrian acting
•under Hadrian’s orders continues the earlier series of similar
1 XXVI K, 100. Cf. Irenaeus, adv. Haer. iv, 46, 3; Ps.-Aristides xxxvK,
37 (a.d. 247, see above, p. 88 sq^.
VII, i] THE ECONOMIC EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE 235
exploratory voyages. When the Chinese general Pan Ch’ao, as
Chinese annals tell us, dispatched agents in a.d. 97 on a mission
of exploration from Turkestan to Ta-ts’in^ (though this venture
met with no success), and when, conversely, Marcus Aurelius sent
a mission, starting in all probability from Ctesiphon, to China
which arrived there in 166^, it was once again commercial policy
which inspired these efforts.
With the government adopting this attitude, the bourgeois
population could, and necessarily would, grow in numbers in the
regions already available. And in districts freshly opened to ex-
ploitation a new bourgeoisie came into being consisting of
immigrant foreigners or of members of the indigenous population
who acquired Mediterranean culture. Urbanization advanced in
Gaul, Germany, Britain, the Danubian regions, including Dacia
and Thrace, and also in Spain and Africa. Even Egypt received
a city in due form (Antinoopolis); and the bourgeois of the
Egyptian meiropoleis^ among whom we must reckon the land-
owning veterans, only became important in the second century,
when, after the re-partition of the great ousiai of the magnates in
the second half of the first century (vol. x, p. 293), still more of
them found a livelihood as farmers and landowners. Vespasian,
Trajan, and Hadrian, influenced in part by the recruiting pro-
blem, namely the difficulty of securing adequate enlistment in Italy,
strongly encouraged this development. It is at least clear that the
power of assimilation possessed by the Graeco-Roman city-culture
was not weakened until the time of Hadrian, and in some cases not
even after him, though the bourgeois population never formed the
majority, which was always and unquestionably composed of
workers on the land. Thus while the increase in the number of cities
meant a further rise in consumption and in the demands resulting
from city-culture, the increase in the numbers of the bourgeois
population meant an extension of economic activity and of an
order that was capitalistic in method. Again, primitive forms of
economy which were based on hunting, pasturage and unorganized
corn-growing, gave place to systematic agriculture and horticul-
ture and the production of wine and oil. The vine was cultivated
more and more on the Moselle and in the Wetterau, the olive in
^ See above, p. 104, and the translation in F. Hirth, CMnaand the Roman
Orient, pp. 39 and 42, cf. pp. 214 sqq. and 1 75 sq. Which part of the Roman
world isTa-ts’in is in dispute. Perhaps Syria. For theidentification with South
Arabia see A. Herrmann, Die Verkehrswege zwischen China, Indien, vnd
Rom um 100 n. Chr. p. 8.
® See Honigmann in P.W., s.v. Ctesiphon, Suppl. iv, col. iiii. ■ '
236 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Africa, and both in Transjordania, also, in old-established agri-
cultural regions such as Egypt. Barren districts were brought
under cultivation by the ot emphyteusis. M?,o the army
played its part by the development of the territories it garrisoned,
and through the settlements of veterans on the land.
The tendency to decentralization already noted naturally would
be of effect no less in regions which had begun, or continued,
to be developed, than elsewhere. The negative side of this ten-
dency has already been stressed. There was, however, a corre-
sponding positive side, and this is what concerns us now. For
decentralization meant not only that the centre declined in
significance, but also that the peripheral regions became more
self-dependent, and economic activity increased. Indeed, the
result was, in the last resort, that regions which had relied sub-
stantially on primary production and had imported manufactured
articles processed by a skilled technique, now themselves worked
up and finished the raw materials, thus developing special cap-
abilities of their own, until in the end they imported raw materials
from abroad to be processed at home. No doubt the character-
istic ambition of colonial regions to emulate the achievement of
the colonizing centre was a contributory factor. This ambition had
an excellent chance of being realized— since the military and
political importance of these border countries meant that they
offered the best economic prospects, if only because of the in-
creased demand, for which the armies were largely responsible.
Yet another consideration — even more valid then than to-day —
was the transport difficulty, as has been emphasized in an earlier
volume (x, p. 422). For although the technical improvements in
travel and communication were relatively great, yet, judged by
absolute or rather by modern standards, transport remained primi-
tive, and travel by sea was dangerous even between Italy and
GauU. Aelius Aristides for instance, who loudly praises the general
security of communication, gives a glimpse of the truth in the
preamble to his encomium of Rome^, when he says that a sea
voyage involves such great risks that it is wise to guard against
them by vows to the gods, and he himself composed a hymn to
Sarapis after rescue from peril at sea®. Journeys by land are also
not wholly safe, and before them, too, men offer their vows to the
gods. And transport overland at its best is slow and relatively
dear. Thus costs and risks combined to bring about the trans-
^ Suetonius, Claud. 17, 2. ® xxvi k, i.
® XLV K. (e/? XdpaiTiv)', cf. c. 33 sq. It should be remembered, however,
that Aristides was a constitutionally nervous man.
DECENTRALIZATION
VII, ii]
m
ference of production to the region of consumption — a pheno-
menon not peculiar to the ancient world. Branches are established,
and there is a migration of industrialists and industries, of agri-
culturalists and agricultural enterprise. The important part played
by internal trade, and by the progressive secondary decentra-
lization (see below, p. 241), is proof of all this. Problems con-
nected with adequate labour resources are another factor in the
situation (see below). To sum up: the tendency to decentralization,
together with the increased demand in the frontier territories,
determines, positively no less than negatively, the development
of economic life, including production and exchange.
II. PRODUCTION
We consider production first, but begin with an illustration of
its negative side, since Italy was affected by this. An inevitable
result of decentralization was that Italy, originally the chief pro-
ductive centre, whose period of greatest prosperity in the early
years of the Empire has been described^, suffered a recession,
though Northern Italy was not affected like the rest. So many
causes contributed to this process that it is not easy to determine
which was the most decisive. The growing independence of the
provinces, and their emancipation from the domination of a single
economic centre are doubtless an important factor, especially in
the West; but it can hardly have been crucial, since, as we shall
see, Gaul (together with Germany) and Northern Italy in some
sense took the place formerly occupied by peninsular Italy. There
must then have been other contributory forces at work. The
problem of recruiting labour should be mentioned here. It has been
suggested elsewhere that Italy was dependent on slaves to a very
large extent for her resources of labour. The imperial peace,
however, was unfavourable to the import of slaves in large
numbers, and they became dearer. Hence, Italian production for
export was handicapped by comparison with many provinces,
such as the Three Gauls, Germany, Asia Minor, and Egypt,
where the problem was simpler, since the lowest class of the in-
digenous population provided an abundant reservoir of labour.
Northern Italy and Istria also enjoyed more favourable conditions
on the whole than the rest of Italy, A further important factor is
the depopulation of Italy, which manifested itself in the shortage
of recruits, and in the well-known remedial legislation of Nerva,
^ See vol. X, pp. 392 sqq.
238 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Trajan, and other emperors. It is not only a sign of degeneration
in a culture that had outlived its vitality, but is also connected
with the outflow of the population from Italy into the provinces.
Better prospects were to be found there, so that farmers and con-
tractors emigrated, and soldiers at the end of their military service
preferred not to return home.
Thus the old flourishing export of industrial and agricultural
products slowly declined. Italy began to lose her dominating
economic position, just as she gradually lost her political pre-
eminence. She became part of the Empire, no whit superior to the
other parts, some of which (Glaul for example, see p. 242) out-
stripped her economically. It is true that Italian woollens, Italy’s
excellent wine and oil long continued to be bought and exported,
while in the second century Gapuan metal vessels still maintained
their position in the markets of the West. But Italian industry
no longer kept its lead. The great manufactories gave way to
small concerns of the artisan type working for the home market,
and even these were hard hit by imports from Gaul. The manu-
facture of glass, pottery, and metal vessels for large-scale export
gradually ceased, and local production took its place. The ‘world
monopoly’ of Fortis lamps was broken in the second century.
There was a corresponding decline in Italian agriculture,
formerly organized systematically for export. Thus during a
widespread temporary crisis in production, connected with an
excessive cultivation of the vine and a deficient cultivation of
corn, it was not necessary in Italy, as it was in the provinces, for
Domitian to impose special restrictions on vine-growing^. For
although under the Antonines viticulture was specifically en-
couraged along with corn-growing^ and undoubtedly paid, yet
the rural economy of Italy progressively deteriorated into a
more extensively organized production of corn, which was now
mostly supplied by latifundia with coloni (i.e. by a technique of
production which included small holdings), and which still sufficed
to cover demand under such conditions as had prevailed hitherto®.
The causes of this process are not easy to explain, but it was
^ Suetonius, Dom. 7, 2. Whereas in the provinces existing vineyards were
to be reduced by at least a half, in Italy only new vine3ra,rds were prohibited.
® Fronto, ad M. Caes. ii, 5 (p. 29 N.).
® The production of corn may have declined as well as of wine and oil.
The great estates may to some extent have reached the previous quota of
grain, but not more, for Italy continued to need a supplement from abroad.
But the amount produced had fallen, since not so much was needed. The old
quota of wine and oil was not even reached. For the internal supply of corn
see Dessau 3696 (a.d. 136).
RECESSION IN ITALY
VII, II]
239
doubtless due in large measure to the drop in population and to
the transference to the provinces of that activity, capitalistic in
its methods, which was specifically bourgeois. Big capitalists
must have hastened to fill the gaps, high officials who were
anxious to invest in land the profits saved or perhaps extorted
during their careers, and who were persuaded by the artificial
means of imperial decrees to spend their wealth in Italy
Thus conditions came into being which resembled those of the
second century b.c. Free and unfree, agricultural and non-
agricultural labourers, and also small peasant farmers, who had
before been ruined by the new big agricultural capitalists (so that
here the factors at work have a reciprocal action) — such were the
men who may have furnished material whence the ro/oOT-tenants
were drawn. The development was unhealthy, as was that of the
secondcentury B.c. ; the emperors from Claudius to Marcus Aurelius
fought it, but the forces at work were stronger than the power of
the emperors, and it was the destiny of Rome, as of so many other
victors in history, to be ultimately destroyed by the results of her
own victory.
The positive side of decentralization is almost more important
than the negative. The north-eastern region of Upper Italy, and
the more recently civilized areas profited most. Upper Italy
(including Istria) differs from the rest of the peninsula® because
of its proximity to the Danubian lands. There the demand for the
amenities of civilization was so great, that despite the beginnings
of emancipation and self-sufficiency (pp. 240 ^yy.), and despite
Gallo-German competition, which was very fierce from the second
century onwards, there was still an opening for North Italian
export. So the production of wine and oil (the latter especially in
Istria) flourished here, being carried on in large-scale agricultural
productive units, like the ‘uilla of Brioni Grande. There was also
a vigorous industry producing articles for large-scale export,
comprising pottery and bricks, textiles (mass-produced in the
time of Pertinax)®, and the traditional metal, amber, and glass
wares, for which Aquileia remained the unchallenged centre
throughout her history.
Among the more recently civilized regions Gaul marched in
1 Pliny, Ef. vi, 19, 4; S.H.A. Marcus, ii, 8.
2 This is only generally true; an exact geographical delimitation is not
possible. Cf. what is said of the Fortis lamps (of Mutina) above, p. 238, and
the wool-weaving business of Pertinax (in Liguria); see below, n. 3.
® S.H.A. Pert. 3, 3 sqq. The Emperor’s father had a private taherna
coadiliaria in a villa in Liguria, which was greatly enlarged by Pertinax.
240 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
the van, because in that country the cultural advance had
long since been relatively great; and this activity presently ex-
tended to Roman Germany and Raetia. Other regions, such as
the Danubian provinces (including Dalmatia and Thrace),
Britain, Africa, and Transjordania, developed along similar lines,
though now, as formerly, progress was conditioned by geographical
and political factors, so that marked differences appear in the
speed, degree, and individual peculiarities of the growth and
spread of economic development. Thus Britain begins her economic
development in the second century, and reaches peak production
in the third and fourth centuries. Dalmatia and Noricum advance
more rapidly than Pannonia and the provinces on the Lower
Danube. Dacia’s development had to start from the beginning.
The newest colonial territories (Britain, the more recently ac-
quired regions on the Danube, the new districts in Africa, and
Transjordania) at first still continued in the old economy of their
barbarian past, concerning themselves with primitive primary pro-
duction of articles which they exchanged for wine, oil, and agri-
cultural products of more civilized areas, and this primary produc-
tion was, as it seems, so increased as to yield a yet greater surplus
Then, however, forces came into play which, as we have seen, were
conducivetomethodicalexploitationoftheexisting local possibilities
and to self-sufficiency. Agriculture was intensified, and sufficed to
meet the needs of the influx of immigrants from abroad. The pro-
ductive unit of thevilla rustic a became more general ; viticulture and
olive-growing spread. Germany west of the Rhine became in-
creasingly independent of the wines of southern Gaul and of Italy.
From Hadrian’s time especially oil production advanced in the
south-west of Africa^. Wine and oil were also produced in Dalmatia
and in Transjordania, and sufficient wine for local needs in Africa.
The mines in Britain and Dacia were worked more actively. In the
industrial field (in pottery, glass, metal, and textile wares for every-
day use) Gaul reached an unexpectedly high level of production,
and from the reigns of Vespasian and Trajan Germany west of the
Rhine gradually followed suit. A similar progress occurred in the
Danubian regions, especially in Noricum, and, later, in Pannonia.
Africa supplied her own needs. So did other lands, though to a
lesser degree. Britain made within her own borders the pottery
and metal wares in daily use. Special capacities, such as the Celto-
^ For a brisk private traffic with Britain in the middle of the second century
see Aelius Aristides, xxxvi k., 91.
^ See the inscriptions (Bruns, Fmtef, 115, iii, 6 sqq., 116, in, 9 sqq^ and
archaeological evidence dating from the second to the fourth century.
VII, II] ADVANCES IN THE NEWER PROVINCES 241
Germanic gift of artistic creativeness, the joy in craftsmanship
which finds vivid expression in the Gallo-German monuments,
and the business ability which is manifest and striking, entered
into happy partnership with the economic methods introduced
by the lands possessing a long tradition of civilization.
The ramifications of the general decentralization, and the
secondary decentralization which ensues, can be clearly seen in
the special history of Gallo-German manufacture of terra sigillata
in the period from the first to the second century. The chief
centres of manufacture split off and move from the South of France
to the Allier basin (Lezoux), eastern Gaul, Raetia, and Alsace,
and finally to Rheinzabern. Similarly in the African lamp industry
Italian wares gave place to Carthaginian, which themselves lost
the market to lamps of purely local manufacture.
The tendency here described was due primarily to the supply-
ing of local needs and production for a neighbouring market, yet
the economic development of the newly civilized territories did not
stop short at this stage, but they frequently advanced, as North
Italy had done, to production for distant consumers. In this con-
nection it was of minor importance that articles of primary
production, such as African corn (now cultivated in larger
quantities) of which Italy stood in need^, or British lead and tin,
increasingly competing in the second century with the Span-
ish lead and tin, or Dacian gold, foimd a distant market, since
these were vital commodities with a certain rarity value or in
mass-demand, and markets always have a welcome for objects of
this kind. Nor should we stress the supply of oil from southern Gaul
to the German provinces and to Britain, or of Gallo-German wine
to Britain^, since here the climate made import inevitable. The
rapid emergence of a trade in finished articles to neighbouring
technically underdeveloped and culturally backward regions is of
secondary importance too; thanks to imperial expansion these
regions had come within the sphere of influence of the newly
civilized territories, so that Gallo-German products were sent
to Britain and free Germany, or Norican wares to Pannonia and
the lands beyond the Danube, or, later, Pannonian wares to Dacia.
Such a development was bound to happen, and under similar
circumstances would always recur, and the influence of transport
conditions on such exchanges is very slight. It is, on the other
hand, of primary importance that some of the recently developed
1 For the African corn-fleet see S.H. A. , 17, 7. A
® Notwithstanding S.H.A. ProL 18, 8.
24a THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
economic areas succeeded, despite decentralization and diffi-
culties of transport, in winning the imperial, and, in a certain
sense, even the world market. Such was the case with Gaul and
Germany. Gallic wine, for example, was exported from Arelate
and Narbo to the East, and Gallic pottery, until the middle of
the third century, when the great crisis came, possessed a kind
of world monopoly such as had previously been enjoyed only by
the most highly developed countries with a long tradition of
civilization. Pottery from Gaul is found during this period in
Italy, Spain, Africa, and even in Egypt and Syria. Terra sigillata
from Rheinzabern is found on the lower Danube and in Britain^;
Gallic fibulae in the Danubian regions, in free Germany (where
they are copied) and in eastern Europe. Cologne glass practically
dominates the Western market. Belgian cloaks were still in
demand during the third century, and served as models for the
woollen weavers of Phrygian Laodicea under Diocletian®. Most
of the industries in these new regions did not attain world-wide
significance, and hence did not develop forms of mass-production.
The high level of output achieved by the Gallo-German industries,
a level approximately equal to that reached in Italy in earlier
times, was due to exceptionally favourable predisposing con-
ditions. These were the fact that in culture these districts had
the start over the other frontier provinces, further, the presence
of raw materials locally in large quantities, good conditions of
labour, fine achievement in the field of skilled craftsmanship and
marked business ability, and good internal transport along rivers
or canals, which facilitated the building up of an extensive local
trade, and so made it possible that large-scale production for local
demand should be developed into mass-production for distant
markets. Finally, we must not underestimate the influence of the
Rhine army with its great demand resulting in a corresponding
supply, so that when, in the second century, the military
centre of gravity swung over from Rhine to Danube, it set free
considerable surplus production.
In the older provinces of the Empire there was no development
which advances so far beyond the previous level. Yet in these
provinces, too, the general conditions (lasting peace, spread of
civilization, urbanization, formation of bourgeoisie -Axidufassessores,
and cessation of the Italian ascendancy) acted as a steady stimulus,
so that for the time being at least the standard achieved in the first
^ See vol. XI, p. 539.
® S.H.A. Gall, dm, 6, 6; Car. 10, 6; Ed. Diocl. de pretiis, xix, 27.
VII, Ii] THE OLDER PROVINCES 243
century was still maintained. Thus Spain presents much the same
picture as in the first century. The sherds from the ‘Monte Test-
accio’ in Rome, which suggest that Spain produced a surplus of
oil, wine, and fish, mostly date from the second and early third
centuries. There was also a large export of corn, and after the
Neronian confiscations it was also grown on the great estates of the
imperial Patrimonium. Mining, the organization of which is well
known from the lex metalli Vipascensis^, dating from the time of
Hadrian (the beginnings perhaps go back to the Flavians), is pro-
bably already declining somewhat by the second century, owing
to partial exhaustion of the veins of silver; and tin production also
appears to have receded. But these were hardly crucial changes,
and on the whole the old industry maintained its former position.
In Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, Macedonia, Greece, Crete,
and Cyrenaica, things remained essentially unaltered.
The East gained rather than lost, especially Eastern industry.
For although the market was somewhat contracted through the
tendency to independence and the competition of the West^, this
was amply compensated by the cessation of Italian predominance
and by the possibilities of export to the East, where the frontiers
had been advanced, and to the lands beyond the frontiers in the
South-east, where trade was protected. Indeed the East as a
whole gained in importance from Trajan’s time and from the
organization of peace under Trajan and Hadrian. The traditional
production of Asia Minor and Syria flourished, and was further
stimulated by the proximity of the armies. Even Egyptian in-
dustry on occasion — as in a.d. 138 — was drawn upon for military
supplies In the form of textiles for the Cappadocian army®. The
agricultural produce of Asia Minor (corn and wine) continued to
be exported and the fisheries, the quarries, in fact industry in
general, especially the manufacture for export of its famous
woollen goods with its subsidiary of purple dye works, maintained
production. In Syria also the old-established centres flourished.
The strong impulses which affected trade here (p. 246) naturally
benefited also the old-established Syrian industries (linen, silk,
glass, and dyed woollens). Similarly, Egypt maintained its level
of activity in agriculture and Industry ; indeed, the fact that the
bourgeoisie did not achieve its full development until the second
century must have especially accelerated economic development
1 Bruns, Fontes^, 1 12; E. SchSnbauer, ‘Beitr. zur Geschichte des Berg-
baurechtes,’ Munch. Beitr. %. Pap.-Forsch. Xii, 1929, pp. 33 sqq.
2 Cf. the supersession in the Rhineland of Alexandrine glass by that of
Cologne (vol. xi, p. 539). ^ B.G.U. 1564. j.
244 the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
at that time. Agricultural export from Egypt remained on the
whole unimpaired in the second century, and the better manu-
factured articles of Alexandrine industry flooded the Empire in
the old way with textiles, leather goods, papyrus, glass, artistic
metal wares, spices, and perfumes. Alexandria still remained the
industrial city par excellence.
In the North-Eastern area. South Russia, if this may be reckoned
as part of the Empire, flourished by virtue of its corn-export to
the Roman army until just before Trajan’s reign, and, to some
extent, later, when the Cappadocian army at any rate was supplied.
The conclusion is that production on the whole had increased
and that productive centres had multiplied. New agricultural and
industrial magnates^, and new producers of raw materials,
amongst whom must be counted the conductores of the imperial
mines, sprang up like mushrooms. New or extended large
territorial units for primary production or processing raw materials
emerged, partly in competition with one another, and at the same
time there was an abundance of specialities of both kinds connected
with particular localities, all of which invited trading interchange.
For decentralization had as its goal the cheap and profitable supply
of local demand, but emphatically did not aim at self-sufficiency, still
less at a closed system. Similarly the capitalistic producer aimed
at the marimum possible profit, implying the maximum possible
turnover and interchange.
III. INTERCHANGE AND COMMERCE
Admittedly, interchange, like production, was characterized by
decentralization. The negative effect was here discernible in two
ways. First, some of the old trading countries played a more
passive part. Secondly, the commercial interdependence of the
Empire became less close owing to the marked advance in the
internal trade of the provinces. Italy again (except in the north)
is the country most subject to the greater passivity and contrac-
tion^ which affect both commercial enterprise and the balance of
trade. In both spheres the situation became increasingly un-
favourable, so that Italy came more and more closely to resemble
one of the purely military regions (excluding, of course, their
hinterlands). Trading activity, however, in and for Italy, just as
1 Often the same persons are both: those concerned with industry (as
with commerce) are found as owners of the villa e rusticae, e.g. at Treves.
® The old-established trading communities of the East also suffer in some
degree through the rise of a strong competition from the traders of the West.
VII, m] ITALY AND COMMERCE 245
in the military districts, was no means small. The large-scale
organization of the annona cvoicahj the emperors, the massive
ruins of Ostia, and, to some extent, the remains of the ‘Monte
Testaccio,’ the frequent evidence of import to Rome and Italy
from the provinces and from regions outside the Empire, which
supplied Italy with the necessities of life, raw materials, and
manufactured goods, articles of mass consumption and luxuries,
all emphatically prove the contrary. In contrast, however, with
earlier conditions more non-Italians than Italians were responsible
for the commercial activity. Moreover, imports were paid for to an
even greater extent by the proceeds of taxation both direct and in-
direct (^.^. converted into officials’ salaries) drawn from the Empire
as a whole, or by non-Italian sources of revenue {e.g, from the
revenues accruing to the emperor, which were spent in Italy),
than by income derived from the export trade. Hence the
balance of trade was definitely more unfavourable than it had
been at the beginning of Imperial times — if, indeed, it was then
unfavourable at alT. The rise of Ostia (an importing harbour-
town), which was enlarged by Trajan and equipped with great
new warehouses, may be contrasted with the decline of Puteoli
(traditionally an exporting harbour-town) in the second century^,
to illustrate the change.
The second factor, the new part played by internal trade {t.e.
by provincial and local trade), which now might become the
most important branch of trade as a whole, and whose advance is
one of the most striking features of the age, affects the whole
Empire. That was the effect of the improvement and extension of
the transport system, which now reached remote districts by water
and by land. In the older regions, such as Italy and the chief
countries of the East, there had always been considerable internal
trade. This still maintained itself, and became more extensive so
as to include within its scope the other parts of the East. A
similar development occurred in the provinces of the West,
where Gaul had already led the way. Here again, as in the East,
river or lake transport was more important than road traffic,
Lyons and Trbves are perfect illustrations of this. The silver
patera of Capheaton is meant to depict the interconnection be-
tween road, river, and sea transport in Britain®, and an African
mosaic is crowded with river vessels as well as sea-going ships*.
If in these factors certain negative sides of decentralization
See vol. X, p, 397. : ® O.GJ.S. 595 (a.d.^ 274),,^ ".
® See Volume of Plates V, 152, <7. * /L 152,
246 the economic life OF THE EMPIRE [chap
find expression, these are amply compensated by the positive sides.
The developing internal trade is itself to be set down on the credit
side in the last analysis, since it came into being alongside inter-
provincial and international trade, without exterminating or
weakening them. In fact they too developed at the same time. The
conditions of production and transport, the further enlargement
of the area open to trade, and not least the scale on which supplies
for the army were needed in the North-west, the North, and the
East, all contributed to this end. Thus the passivity of which we
spoke was balanced by an increased activity on the other side.
Whereas the Italian dealers (except those from North Italy)
disappeared to an ever greater degree from the markets, adaptable
Orientals, who had always known how to outwit their Italian rivals,
remained, commerce was conducted, as before, by Syrians and their
companions from Antioch and Tyre, from Palmyra and Doura,
from Petra, Philadelphia, Gerasa, and Bostra, by Egyptians from
Alexandria, and by Levantines from Amisus, Sinope, Nicomedia,
Ephesus, and the like. Their ranks were swelled by the des-
cendants of the old Greek traders, not so much from the mother-
land, though Corinth and Patrae still play some part, but colonial
Greeks. Apart from Asia Minor, already referred to, Dalmatia,
where Salonae was the commercial capital, supplied its quota; as
did places adjoining to the south, such as Dyrrhachium; so too
Thessalonica in Macedonia, Mesembria and Abdera in Thrace,
Tomi and Istros in Lower Moesia, and Olbia, Chersonesos, and
Panticapaeum in South Russia, which were helped to importance
by the enhanced significance of supplies to the army, and so on.
The true heirs of the old Italian dealers were, however, Oc-
cidentals — Upper Italians from Aquileia, Gallo-Germans from
Narbo and Arelate, and from Lyons, Trfeves and Cologne (these
three not merely centres of internal trade and army supply), to-
gether with Britons from Londinium — to mention only a few of the
most important. The volume of trade, in which foreigners were
also engaged, especially in the West (Danubian regions, Africa,
Britain), may well have increased by comparison with earlier
times. That is the conclusion to be derived from authors, inscrip-
tions and papyri, from finds of goods, from coinage, and archi-
tectural monuments, such as the ‘Piazzak delle CorporazionP in
Ostia, dating from the second and third centuries. The distribution
of the traders indicates a lively commercial activity and a still
greater intercourse than before. Oriental traders are found not
only in the Roman and non-Roman East, but also in the West, in
Rome and Italy, in Sicily, Gaul, the Rhineland, Britain, the
VII, m] THE HEIRS TO ITALIAN TRADE 247
Danubian provinces (including Dalmatia and Thrace), and in
south Russia. And Occidental traders, especially the Gallo-
Germans, are met with not only in Italy and throughout the West,
but also in the foreign countries of the North, and, on occasion, in
the East of the Empire. New competition spurred them on.
Gallo-German, Istrian or North-Italian, and Dalmatian dealers
fought one another for the chance of supplying the Danubian
provinces \ which were so important in the second and third
centuries; and for the lower Danubian area there were further
competitors from Asia Minor and Syria. Cologne was a trade
rival of Aquileia and Alexandria (see above, p. 243, n. 2),
A further indication of the development lies in the geogra-
phical advance not only of intermittent but also of systematic
trade within the Empire, and in the fact that the outposts of
the export trade were constantly moved forward. Thus Gallic
trade advances to the Rhine, Gallo-German to the Danube, to
Britain and free Germany, Norican trade to Pannonia, the Pan-
nonian to Dacia, and the Syrian to the Euphrates. In the North,
Scotland and Ireland were reached. The increasing finds of
articles and coins show that trade grew with free Germany, not
only from the Rhine valley, or by way of the north coast of Germany,
but also from the Danube and South Russia. A like advance
marks the trade with Scandinavia and Central Russia. Knowledge
of India became increasingly evident; Trajan, Hadrian, Pius, and
Elagabalus, received Indian embassies, and the coin-hoards in
India, and the residence of Egyptian traders in India, and Indian
traders in Egypt, show how close the connection was. The Indian
trade, however, pushed farther forward to Sumatra, Indo-China, and
finally, by way of Annam, to China itself. Commerce with China
was not only through a series of intermediaries, but from 166
(according to the Chinese annals) there was also direct trade^.
Further evidence is provided by the specialization of the pro-
fession of dealer (in corn, wine, oil, wood, pork, etc.), which
suggests intense activity. The wide distribution of wholesale
trading concerns, and of the retail businesses dependent on them,
points in the same direction, as do the numerous warehouses and
storage-rooms, the bazaars, markets, and fairs, the import and
^ See vol. XI, p. 549.
2 See above, p. 235 n. 1. A direct connection between Tyre and Lian-shu
by way of Kashgar seems to have been established as early as A. D. 100 (perhaps
through the use of Parthian ^ents) according to the report of Marinus in
Ptolemy (Geogr. i, 1 1 , 7). A. Herrmann, Mitt. d. geogr. Gesellsch. Wien, LVm,
1915, pp. 480 1^5'. See, however, vol. XI, p. 1 22. . '
248 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
export firms with their branches, dock-warehouses, and counting-
houses, ships and caravans, the freighters and overseas merchants
who ‘travel widely’^, and the business men who travel by land.
There were also trading corporations and associations, on the lines
of the ‘Chamber of commerce’ at Ostia for the branch of the
annona civica^ the Gallic trading companies, the Alexandrine
associations of nauklerot^n^ emporoi, and the societies of Palmyrene
merchants with their communal caravans organized on Oriental
models. The law governing commercial transactions was worked
out in the minutest detail and implies complicated trading
negotiations such as are exemplified in the Egypt papyri and the
legal documents from Doura. Token money^ also appears, indi-
cating that the pressure of monetary transactions was such that
the ordinary coinage of Empire, province and city proved in-
sufficient. Finally, the general prosperity, to which we recur later,
is a striking testimony to the flourishing condition of trade. If we
attempt to make a list of countries according to their trading
activity, the following order may be tentatively suggested. Gaul
and Germany west of the Rhine, with North Italy, Syria, and
Egypt stand first. In the second category come Asia Minor,
Dalmatia, South Russia, Italy, Spain, the Danubian lands, and
Britain. Africa (with Numidia and Mauretania) and Sicily perhaps
come only in the third class together with the remaining territories.
With trade at this level, the former interdependence of the
Empire internally and with the external world naturally remained
unaltered. The character of the goods exchanged also underwent
no change, whether we consider interprovincial or international
trade. This means that interprovincial trade continued to supply
not only various specialities, which will have been handled by
moderate-sized trade organizations and by itinerant vendors®, but
also large quantities of the most vital necessities, which constituted
wholesale trade. Among these necessities were food-supplies,
metals, woods, textiles, and pottery metal and glass utensils of
everyday use, so that this trade was clearly of basic importance in
the economic scheme. International commerce was comple-
mentary to interprovincial trade, and supplied the same products
as before^, namely mass-produced articles and luxury specialities,
not of immediate vital importance. There was still a great demand
for both types, and in view of the permanently unfavourable
foreign trade balance this resulted in a vast drainage of money
1 E.g. LG. XII, (9), 1240.
2 Rostovtzeff, and Ecm. Hist. 172, 542, Germ. Ed.i, pp. 150,319.
® Philostratus, Vita Apoll. ir, 32, 2. ^ See vol. x, pp. 412 sqq.
VII, IV] COMMERCIAL INTERDEPENDENCE 249
abroad. The special products of particular regions, and the con-
ditions of demand were, it is true, somewhat di£Ferent from what
theyhadbeenin earlier times, through the increase in the cultivation
of the olive and the vine, and as a result of local manufacture and
the new configuration of the industrial export trade — a change
which results from what has already been said about production.
There remains, however, a sufficient degree of local specialization
and also of differentiation between regions of primary production
and those processing raw materials to cause interreliance and com-
mercial interdependence. The inscriptions of the second century
furnish a large number of interprovincial trade connections, mostly
on a reciprocal basis, which are not only of an occasional, but also
often of a permanent character. Thus Aelius Aristides speaks
specifically of a steady flow of traffic between Gaul and Britain^,
and the merchant Flavius Zeuxis from Phrygian Hierapolis
travelled seventy-two times between Asia Minor and Rome®.
IV. PROSPERITY: PROGRESS AND RETROGRESSION
The picture as a whole is one of a more lively and flourishing
economic activity, reaching its zenith in the age of the Antonines,
and finding its reflection in the widespread city prosperity of
the times, a prosperity for which the nouveam riches^ naturally
enough, claim most of the credit*. The ruins of the cities, fre-
quently still magnificent, and of the luxurious aristocratic resi-
dences in the country, the funeral monuments and the inscriptions
in stone which record the munificence of wealthy citizens, and also
the large and small farms in purely agricultural districts, all have the
same clear tale to tell. Fortunes were made in a multitude of ways.
Sometimes systematically organized agriculture brought wealth,
as in Africa, where the tenants of the imperial domains, a numerous
class since the Neronian confiscations, must be reckoned amongst
the other large agriculturalists. Sometimes wealth had a mer-
cantile origin, as in Palmyra, Doura, Petra, and also in Ostia,
Sometimes its causes were both agricultural and mercantile
activity, as in South Russia, sometimes mercantile, industrial,
and agricultural, as in Gaul, Germany, and North Italy, or in the
East. Prosperity grew not only in the cities of world-significance,
but also in the thousands of medium-sized and small cities, such as
Thamugadi and Lambaesis in Africa, Heddernheim in Germany
east of the Rhine or Smyrna and Assos in Asia Minor, or
^ Aelius Aristides, xxxvi k, 91. 2 Ditt.® 1229.
® E.g. the Secundini of Igel, Germania Romana^, ra, pp. 49 sqq. (cf.
pp. 24 sqq.).
250 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
Hermupolis Magna in Egypt. This wide diffusion of prosperity
is, indeed, its characteristic feature; there is a decentralization of
property corresponding to the economic decentralization. The
huge fortunes concentrated more especially in Rome and Italy at
the end of the Republican era and in the opening years of the
Empire shrank or disappeared if we except the fortune of the
emperor. The confiscations under emperors such as Nero and
Vespasian indirectly assisted this process. Prosperity was now
spread throughout the Empire — indeed, the change in the eco-
nomic situation was mostly due to this one cause, namely a more
equable distribution, and the middle class, under the direct
encouragement of the emperor, shared to a considerable extent in
the wealth of the Empire as a whole. This is but another aspect
of the levelling process which manifested itself in very similar
fashion in other spheres, such as those of nationality, of con-
stitutional law, of defence policy, and of culture.
In view of this evidence it cannot be denied that an increase in
economic activity took place, but on closer examination it appears
that this increase was only in quantity not in quality. In other
words, it was a matter of greater extension not of greater depth ;
the level of organization already reached in the Hellenistic age
was not surpassed. There was merely a constant expansion of the
existing economic system to embrace territories of the Empire
newly opened to development. Hadrian marked a clear-cut break,
as he was responsible for checking the expansion of the Empire,
though by doing so he admittedly made it possible for the seed
which had been previously sown to come to full maturity in the
early years of the Antonines. A glance at the forms of production
shows that there was no qualitative economic advance. In agri-
culture the villa rustica of Brioni Grande, and the luxury estates,
the manors, and the farms of Gaul, Belgium, Germany, or Africa,
surpass the Pompeian villas in size alone, not in organization,
whereas the provincial villas, especially the larger ones, on the
whole hardly approached the Pompeian standard, if, indeed, they
had any desire to do so (see below, p. 274). In the industrial sphere
it is true that in connection with the great estates of the emperors
and of private citizens in Italy as in the provinces (Gaul, Germany,
Belgium, Britain, Africa) new large-scale concerns producing for
export on the model of the Egyptian oa^w-manufacture did come
into being, this process being -encouraged by the fact that raw
materials, such as clay and wool, could be processed by agricultural
labourers during the winter, . These forms of production, how-
ever, did not cause an advance in the essential character of
VII, IV] ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND ITS LIMITS 251
industry, any more than did the large concerns run by specialists
in some particular line of business (brickyards, potteries, builders’
and glaziers’ workshops), in the cities or the countryside of the
new or old provinces. The step from the manufactory to the
factory (see vol. x, p. 391, n. i) and the machine as the funda-
mental means of production was still not made. In businesses the
personal element predominates throughout. Often every imagin-
able form of business activity is united in one hand — industrial,
commercial, agricultural, and banking. A crucial piece of
evidence is that ‘ large-scale’ industry practically never succeeded
in exterminating, or even in markedly limiting, skilled craftsman-
ship, least of all in the West. The craftsman remained, not as a
mere survival, but really independent and capable of competition,
side by side with the rival form of production It follows that
even now there was no ‘large-scale industry’ in the technical sense
of the word, in spite of all approximations to division of labour
and specialized manufacture of the parts (which, however, are not
inconsistent with skilled craftsmanship but only highly organized
production by skilled craftsmanship, a point to which we shortly
return. The mining industry also introduced no new form of
organization. So too, trade and banking provide no evidence
which would point to an advance beyond the stage reached in the
first century of our era or in the Hellenistic age. The arrangements
at Doura, which we now know extremely well, are typical. Their
subdivision, the limited scope of their transactions, their linking
of shops for assorted commodities with pawnbroking all show a
form of organization based on the small-scale unit®. The ‘trading
companies’ {societates) everywhere remain mere associations of
dealers for business purposes, and do not lose their personal
character. It is not surprising, therefore, that the economic
picture appears fundamentally unchanged. Agriculture, not in-
dustry, is of prime importance, and has actually gained in relative
significance (see below, p. 274). Fortunes are made either by the
traditional means of a political career (emperor, favourites, senators,
knights), or else by trade and speculation"^, rather than by industrial
enterprise; and surplus profits from every type of undertaking,
the industrial included, are still constantly invested in land®.
^ The Gallic funeral stelae showing craftsmen may therefore partly reflect
real small-scale industry and need not be for the most part merely evidence
of large-scale production. ® Augustine, fw. vn, 4.
® Cf. the trading firm of Nebucelus and Co. (in the first half of the third
century). Rep. Dura, iv, p. 142 ry. * Ga^tn, protrept. i, 38.
® Cf. the merchants of the Moselle and their nillae rusticae. -•
252 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
What were the underlying causes of the absence of develop-
ment in technique ? The economy of the second and third
centuries was a continuous organic development of the feat-
ures observed in the first century, including both the actively
progressive and the retarding elements (p. 233). The actively
progressive elements, whose ramifications continued into the
third century and later, and are exemplified at the close of that
century in the planting of vineyards held on an emphyteutic
tenure in the large Egyptian estates^, have now been analysed.
The retarding elements, where the old and the new are closely
intertwined, now demand attention.
Among the old factors is the unstable character of ancient
private economy, which is connected with the absence of extensive
financial operations and of wide credit facilities for productive enter-
prises 2. In agriculture we may indeed call to mind the alimenta
of Nerva and his successors (although considerations connected
with the birth-rate and social reform rather than with economic
policy were decisive here), the measures of relief for land-owners
ascribed to Severus Alexander (see above, p. 65), Hadrian’s® re-
mission of rents, and the rebates in taxation on land held on
emphyteutic tenure. There is nothing corresponding to this in
industry. Indeed the financial resources brought into play by
emperors (on the model of Hellenistic rulers) or by great land-
owners for their own industrial purposes constitute a movement
away from the bourgeois system of economy, which is what we
are considering here, and can thus be considered in another con-
nection. State protection of industry is also absent.
A second retarding factor, also of long standing, which Ros-
tovtzeff has emphasized^, is that consumption remained low de-
spite the progress made. The purchasing power of the very large
lower class was small. The circle of buyers for wares of somewhat
superior quality derived accordingly from the middle and upper
classes, and from the army, which for this reason had unusual
economic significance. So long as industry, keeping pace with
■^he political expansion, could steadily enlarge and extend its field
of custom from the buying capacity of the newly-acquired lands,
there was no difficulty. When, however, the limits of the oikou-
mene were reached, and the external market in consequence grew
weaker, industry should have exploited the internal market more
actively, and should have extended its scope to include the lower
^ E.g. P. Oxy. XIV, 1631 (a.d. 280). ® See vol. x, p. 422,
VII, IV] RETARDING FACTORS 253
classes. This, however, would have required a modification in the
social structure of the Empire.
Here a third factor emerges, the legacy, from the Hellenistic
era, of slave labour in manufacture as the most efficient form of
industrial production. Although that era was the technical age
of the ancient world, the evolution of the factory remained incom-
plete, not because of any technical or intellectual deficiency, but
because the slave was a unit of labour which could be exploited to
the full, so that the problem of economizing labour never became
pressing. In Hellenistic, and even in early Imperial, times it was
possible to manage tolerably well with a form of production that
fell short of real intensity, first because the demand was still
sufficiently large, secondly, because the nature of the ancient
civilization, based on coastal and river communications, remained
to some extent unaltered, so that the question of transport costs was
not yet so acute, thirdly, above all because there were still sufficient
slaves or substitutes for them. All three premises had now been
more or less invalidated. Demand could not be increased under
present methods. Slavery, on which the activity of even the
smaller workshops was still chiefly dependent, diminished, and
free labour gained in consequence, especially in the West. This
necessarily implied greater emphasis on individual skilled crafts-
manship, whereas the half-free labour of the East still remained
as a factor favouring the larger type of organization, though at the
same time perhaps favouring strikes of workmen^. The question
of transport costs became more difficult. The old system should
have been jettisoned, the technical side perfected, and so the whole
problem of communication, and, ultimately, the structure of
society, would have been altered.
But the creative energy necessary for such a radical change was
lacking. Instead, the problems at issue, including that of pro-
viding as cheap articles as possible for the lower classes, were
solved by ever greater decentralization, in other words by retro-
gression instead of progress. Manufacture on the large estates
is one of the symptoms of this decentralization. The striking
provincialization and deterioration of industrial products, which
constituted a bad, and at times a mechanical, copy of the material
side of Mediterranean culture, is a consequence alike of decentra-
lization and of the demand for cheaper articles. It was, however,
inevitable that the constant attempts to eliminate or reduce the
^ I.G.R.R. IV, 444. (Pergamum, about the lime of Hadrian.) Even in
this instance, which is relatively the most certain, it is not beyond all doubt
that a genuine strike of workers is meant. ; '
254 the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
costs of transport would act as a deterrent to the development of
large production into a genuine large-scale system, and would cut
short approaches to this development, such as we encounter in
the Fortis lamp-business or the Graufesenque potteries^, A fourth
new factor specially affecting agriculture should be mentioned.
In the previous period Italian agriculture had become more
intensive owing to a relative shortage of land. With the end of
his shortage, and a shrinkage in the supply of labour (slaves),
the change was made, as we saw, to a less intensive type of
cultivation, which prepared the way for a revival of feudalism. In
the provinces there was no land shortage for the ruling class. In
view of the survival of the indigenous aristocracy down to this
time (e.g. in Gaul and Britain) intensive cultivation had, in any
case, only advanced to a limited extent. It was accordingly pos-
sible for the Roman or romanized bourgeoisie to make a fortune
through non-specialized agriculture, which involved far less
trouble, and was the natural choice for the man who only resided
partially on his estate, or for the absentee landlord. The system
of small tenancies subject to the payment of a rent was in some
cases simply the continuation of older conditions; elsewhere it
arose since the native population was not forthwith enslaved but
merely degraded to the condition of tenants or again native peasants
who were heavily in debt were, it is true, deprived of their land but
allowed to cultivate it on payment of a rent. Thus the approach
was made to a system of cultivation which was securely based on
the model of the working of the domains and on Italian proto-
types. At any rate, sufficient forces were in operation to frustrate
the methodical and intensive economy of the capitalistic system, and
to prevent a more highly organized production even in agriculture.
A fifth factor, however, perhaps the most important of all, was
the promotion of State-socialist tendencies that were opposed to
the individualistic principle of economic theory. The gradual
whittling-away of the dominant people by colonization and roman-
ization, and in addition the defective ‘political’ will of a middle-
class which, despite all constitutionalism, was more governed than
^ Rostovtzeff (Uc. cit. above, p. 252 n. 4) attributes the weakness of ancient
industry entirely to the smallness of the consuming body in antiquity, and so
to a social cause. He regards an expensive machine-industry as not capable of
being supported, and refuses to recognize the significance of slave-labour as
an essential factor. To the present writer, it does not appear impossible that
the Ptolemaic paper-industry, flourishing under a mercantilistic system,
and possessing almost a world-monopoly, should have been able to support
rationalization by the introduction of machinery.
VII, ly] STATE-SOCIALIST TENDENCIES 255
governing, whose interests were economic rather than political,
and whose response to the demands of military service for defence
and to the need of maintaining the numbers of the population
was conditioned by the fatal consequences of over-civilization,
resulted in a state of affairs terribly like conditions in Greece
during the Hellenistic age. Thus after Vespasian Italy slowly
relinquishes the leadership, until under Septimius Severus and
Caracalla^ she becomes politically insignificant. With the army
drawing its recruits increasingly from the lower classes, especially
of the peasant type, the centre of gravity shifts to these classes
more and more, and in consequence to the provinces also. The old
traditional culture of the ancient world had lost its power of
resistance and could build no barrier against the irruption from
the East and from the strange (‘barbarian’) North of foreign
cultures and ideas, and of different forms of State and society. The
situation was fraught with danger for the existing economic system,
and the danger came from outside. The menace was magnified,
however, by an internal danger arising out of stagnation. For
life — including economic life — is movement. Every historical
process from its earliest beginning carries within itself the counter-
forces making for its own destruction. While progress is being
made, they are kept under or even absorbed; but with stagnation
they rise to the surface. Thus the economic system based on a
private economy and tending to individualism and freedom con-
cealed within itself the germ of the counter-movement in the sense
of a controlled State-socialism which was now inevitably stimulated
by the changed situation in the whole field of civilized life.
State-socialism is here taken in the widest possible sense as an
orientation imposed from above of the whole social and economic
order based on the interests of the State and not of the individual.
We are not here concerned (see above, p. 234) with the normal re-
strictions of the lib eral system by State economic intervention nor
yet with occasional incursions of the State into private economy
for reasons of economic or social policy, incursions intended for
purposes of relief, which do not really abrogate the principle of
laissez faire^. We are considering rather State-capitalism and
^ The Const. Jntoniniana marks just as much the decline of the Romans
as a raising of the provincials (see above, pp. 45 sqq^.
^ Cf. the Imperial domains, mines, fisheries} the provisioning of the great
cities and the army in connection with the earlier treatment of the problem of
the food-supply (fwtAma) by the
® Foreconomic-politicalmeasuresseevol.x,p. 386 and above, p. 238. For
social-political measures see above, pp. 239} 252 and below, p. 261: ■ * •' ’
256 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
State-socialism of the type which Augustus had formerly resisted,
but which from the second century onwards advanced inexorably,
characterized by State egotism rather than altruism, by regi-
mentation, standardization, and a dictatorial attitude rather than
by control and paternal beneficence. Within this framework the
idea of the omnipotence of the State, which had already evolved
from the organic conception of the Polis, changed more and more
under the influence of orientalizing-hellenistic and other theories
of the State which still survived within the frame of the Empire.
This new political and social form was bound ultimately to reshape
economic life also, the more so since an economic question —
that of the public finances — played a decisive part in the change.
The replacement of one economic system by the other, and the
substitution of a new civilization and attitude to life for the old
took more than a century and a half. It was completed by the
end of the third century, but the beginnings go back to the
earliest years of the second century.
V. THE BURDENS OF STATE DEMANDS
This tendency towards State-socialism grew the stronger,
through the emergence of the first great crisis of the Empire’s
foreign policy caused by the attack alike from North and East
upon a Roman world which was internally growing weaker and by
Trajan’s tremendous efforts to master these difficulties. At that
time it became evident that even the financial system of the
mighty Roman Empire was not sufficiently strong and elastic to
maintain enhanced expenditure on defence, or to hold out for any
great length of time in wars which did not finance themselves
without being rudely shaken- Although the State from the early
days of Nero and Domitian had steadily increased its possessions
of territory and mines (see below, p. 272), yet large reserves were
lacking. It was a hand-to-mouth existence. War loans, such as
had been seen from time to time in the Republic, were unknown
Hence the burden could not be spread over a number of years,
but immediate needs demanded extraordinary taxation or in-
creiased rents. Moreover, in view of the inadequate transport
system (witness the constantly recurring famine^), the burdens
were not evenly enough distributed from a territorial point of
view, and the war zones and adjoining regions were dispro-
^ On the disappearance of great fortunes see above, p. 250.
2 Inscr. B.S. J. xxiu, 1918-9, nos. sqq,, ed. Tod (Macedonia
A,D. 1 2 1-3); Pliny, Pan. 29 (by contrast).
VII, v] FINANCIAL SYSTEM 357
portionately hard hit by levies of corn paid for at a fixed rate
below the market price— perhaps, on occasion, not paid for at
all — by other contributions of natural products, and by expenses
connected with transport and road-building. Admittedly these
were regarded as emergency measures. But Trajan’s wars lasted
for year after year. In consequence the burdens imposed on the
population and on certain regions (e.g. Macedonia and Bithynia)
were very great, and had disastrous economic consequences.
When Hadrian and Pius, in view of these facts, abandoned attack
as a means of defence and fell back on the defensive, the financial
pressure diminished, debts were cancelled^, and economic life
could revive; yet in the last resort this recovery was superficial,
the more so since Hadrian’s policy of strengthening the Empire
internally also cost money, so that no savings were made. For the
problem of foreign policy, which Trajan attacked with such
striking energy, was not solved, but only kept in suspense, so that
presently Marcus Aurelius and other emperors had to face it
again, the sole difference being that the situation had meanwhile
grown more dangerous.
Thus the question of army supplies and the whole problem of
finance became cardinal from the second century onwards. The
government oscillated between increased taxation and remission
of debts. Then the currency was tampered with. Following Nero’s
precedent, Trajan, despite his large supplies of gold — mainly the
booty from his Dacian conquests— and other emperors debased
the denarius, presumably at the same time increasing the amount
in circulation. The stability of the currency was not immediately
threatened, since the prestige of the Empire was still sufficiently
high. In foreign countries, however, where the coins were ac-
cepted according to their metal content, it seems that already
under Marcus Aurelius the denarius, whose proportion of precious
metal had been reduced by twenty-five per cent., encountered
difficulties^. Corresponding with the slow decline of the currency
there was a gradual weakening of economic principles. The needs
of the government had to be met promptly and cheaply, and in
consequence the tendency towards State-socialism and compulsion
grew more and more marked.
The financial system and, as part of it, the method of meeting
^ Hadrian’s remission of debts of a.d. i i 8 (900 million sesterces for
citizens’ debts alone to the treasury), C.I.L. vi, 967; for coins P. L. Strack,
Untersuch. zur rom. Reichspragung, n, p. Dio LXtx, 8; S.H.A. Hadr.
7, 6. For remissions of rent see above, p. 252, n. 3.
® See Note 3 at end of volume, p. 724.
258 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
the costs of local administration, had the most diverse origins,
Oriental, Greek (these had already coalesced in the Hellenistic
age), and Roman. Direct taxation, forced labour, serf or half-
free labour in State concerns, the provision of transport at the
order of the State (angareiat)y the responsibility of professional
groups for meeting the State’s demands, personal responsibility
of salaried officials for a regular and punctual payment of revenue
from taxation and other sources of income — these were Oriental
traits. Of Graeco-Roman origin were, apart from indirect taxation,
extraordinary capital levies and compulsory services in time of
emergency, the following: the almost, or wholly, unpaid tenure
of administrative office (as an honorary position), salaried sub-
ordinate officials. State leases, and contracting for the State.
A Greek conception was the property-liturgy undertaken once
only, or at most at long intervals, from a sense of duty, a concep-
tion which gradually extended to include the holding of a magis-
tracy. Finally, it was an idea peculiar to the Roman Empire to
draw on the cities (or quasi-city communities), or on their honor a-
//em and possess ores as agents for the distribution, raising, and
guaranteeing, not only communal but also imperial demands
and for producing men on whom obligations fell.
There were, accordingly, numerous institutions in existence
whose scope could be extended. As the demands of the State
grew, not only was the number of irregular impositions increased,
and more frequent angareiat and compulsions imposed, but also
existing remunerations were reduced or abolished, while the more
normal taxes and rentals were at least maintained at their former
level. Moreover, in difficult times the guarantee especially of the
leading city officials was more frequently realized. The advantages
which the smaller positions in the hierarchy of officialdom, with
their modest revenue and modest glory, or the places of honour
with their relative splendour originally had to offer soon came to
be less than the disadvantages. The consequence was that there
gradually arose a reluctance to undertake activities on behalf of
city or State of one’s own free will or because it was the traditional
or natural thing to do^; and the lack of enthusiasm was most
marked when the times called for the relief of economic burdens
and the reduction of trouble to the bare minimum. The crisis
had come. The omnipotent State could find no resource by
which to surmount it but brute compulsion, and so, at the close
^ Cf. the struggle of an Egyptian nome-strategos against the opposition,
Wilcken, Chrest. 35 (a.o. i 35)
VII, vi] THE GROWTH OF STATE DEMANDS 259
of the first and beginning of the second century, the hated ‘litur-
gization’ came increasingly into evidence. By means of forced
labour and compulsory supply it came to encroach more and more
on the preserves of the State contract, and to some extent also of
the transport system, though the navkularii (p. 31) were still
immune, because their interests were still sufficiently linked with
those of the State as a result of privileges and compensation. The
liturgy of office came into being or was at least more firmly
rooted, and the compulsory decurionate, the compulsory decem-
primate, and compulsory magistracy appeared. In this change,
city self-government, the special symbol of life as it was lived in
the world of classical antiquity, was attacked.
It is interesting to observe that the change to State-compulsion
was made by none other than Trajan and Hadrian. Self-govern-
ment was restricted by Trajan (anticipated to some extent by
Nerva) so that the control of city finances might give the State
greater opportunities of making inroads on their funds Com-
pulsory State leases, and compulsory recruiting for the lower and
middle grades of local officials, reached an advanced stage during
his reign. The problem of filling the office of Gymnasiarch, and
the question of high prices are agitating the citizens of the Egyp-
tian quasi-city Hermupolis Magna in the year 115^. The earliest
evidence for the ‘inviti decuriones’ is found in a letter of Pliny
to Trajan (113). Methodical organization of the liturgy-system
goes back to his successor, whose reign also marks an important
stage in the development of the imperial bureaucratic State. The
frumentarii, introduced as secret police and informers to watch
a recalcitrant populace, already have a certain significance under
Hadrian. Yet Trajan and Hadrian are avowedly constitutional
and enlightened emperors. Indeed, Trajan had his qualms about
the compulsory decurionate, as his reply to Pliny shows. The
inevitability of the development, and the exigence of foreign
policy and of the self-preservation of the State could not find a
better illustration.
VI. THE GREAT CRISIS AND THE RESTORATION
The economic advance under the early emperors was based on
the peace and strength of the Empire. The results of a change in
these essential conditions can easily be imagined. They have
already been touched on. The falling-off in that bourgeois muni-
^ Cf. Trajan’s interest in the finances of the Bithynian cities in his cor-
respondence with the younger Pliny. ^ Wilcken, Chrest. 149. .
26 o the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
licence, b7whose aid the first periods of crisis in the second century-
had been surmounted, foreshadows the decline. Nevertheless the
level of economic activity was more or less maintained down
to the time of the Antonines. There were two reasons for this.
First, the bourgeoisie, which was responsible for meeting the
many demands, was temporarily able to shift a sufficient part of its
burden on to the lower class and lower middle-class, a process
which gave rise to revolutionary movements, peasant revolts, and
what may have been strikes, or something like them^. Secondly,
the capital resources, into which the State on occasion made in-
roads with scant ceremony, were dissipated only by slow degrees.
It becomes increasingly clear, however, once we have grasped the
obstacles with which economic activity had to cope, why it was
inevitable for the above-mentioned stagnation to ensue and by a
gradual process, though already as early as the second century, to
merge into retrogression, which is in fact inherent in stagnation.
The progressive change in agricultural production from the
middle-sized specialized farm to the diffusely organized large-
scale unit, the frequent nationalization of landed property, dating
from the end of the first century, and the coming into being of
the colonate, all testily to such a retrogression. The decline in
achievement in the industrial and technical spheres (p. 2 5 3), and the
gradual spread of oikos-economj on the great estates, point in the
same direction. The development of State-controlled commerce
and the withdrawal of ships from service crippled free trade, and the
intellectual and spiritual deficiency which became marked in cul-
tural life as a whole during the second half of the second century
affected the economic life of the community just as profoundly as
it did the other branches of human activity. Whole regions began
to go out of cultivation, not only in Italy and Greece, but also in
Spain under Marcus Aurelius^. Wars, especially with the Mar-
comanni and Parthians, military conscription (as in Spain), and
the great plague brought by troops from the East in 165, accen-
tuated the loss of land to cultivation. Clearly things could not
long continue so without the gravest danger to economic life and
to the Empire itself. It was urgently necessary to check the
tendency; and far-sighted emperors tried time and again to do so.
Reference has already been made to Hadrian’s new direction of
policy. Subsequently Pius, and Marcus Aurelius in particular,
^ See above, p. 253, n. i. A by-form of strike is found in the simple flight
(dvaxtoptjo-t’;), as it is known in Egypt, but also elsewhere (see the petitions
mentioned below, p. 264). ® S.H.A. Marcus, 1 1, 7.
VII, yi] ECONOMIC DECLINE 261
began seriously to economize. The constantly recurring social-
political measures for the benefit of the lower class (including
freedmen and slaves) which had been especially hard hit, the
concern to secure an equitable administration of justice, and the
attempts in Italy to revive agriculture, and to convert coloni into
peasant farmers all point in the same direction, as do the increased
urbanization under Trajan and Hadrian, the cancellation of debts,
and the edicts against extortionate rates of interest and profiteer-
ing. But such palliatives were not enough. What was needed
was a complete change of the old order on which civilization was
built. But for this, as for so much else, the necessary vigour was
lacking.
So events followed their inexorable course, and after the reign
of Marcus Aurelius the threatening storm broke. During the
third century external dangers became steadily more pressing.
From almost all sides came attacks on and invasions of the Empire:
Franks and Alemanni, Vandals, Goths and Sarmatae, Persians,
Blemmyes, and the peoples of Libya and Mauretania all burst
into the Empire and plundered it; Italy herself was not immune.
The catastrophe was the greater because many of these invasions
occurred simultaneously. Cities were sacked; whole provinces
or quasi-provinces, such as the Bosporan kingdom, were lost. In
the middle of the century the Empire split asunder. It is true that,
now, too, the internal crisis was primary; but the situation now
was such that the external pressure gave the impulse which
accelerated the process of internal disintegration. For the army,
which since Marius might always play a part in politics, and
whose numbers had steadily increased through forced levies,
gained enormously in significance, as it was now more indis-
pensable than ever, and traded on this indispensability. Then was
accomplished that dangerous modification in the structure of the
army whose nature has already been described (p. 2 55) : it amounted
to a provincialization and barbarization of the soldiery, its con-
version into a peasantry and a proletariate. The result was the
emergence of a soldateska which ultimately seized all power for
itself, swept aside hampering constitutionalism, the last attempt
at compromise by the old cultured bourgeoisie, and set up in its
place a constitution so reformed as to be adequate only in the eyes
and to the mind of the class from which the soldiery was drawn,
and which was for the most part convenient and profitable to them.
The emperors could not or would not check this development
towards a military absolutism. Even good and energetic rulers
such as Gallienus were powerless here, because in the last resort
262 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
such centralized power was the only means of holding together
a crumbling Empire. Thus there came into being the State of
the third century, for which the great jurists duly created its own
theoretical basis at the beginning of the century.
The ordinary and extraordinary demands which this State
made on its citizens were far greater even than those of the second
century. The wars with their losses, the struggles between pre-
tenders, and the extravagant outlay on soldiers and favourites
cost vast sums. So did the expenditure on the army which
numbered (at the time of Caracalla) some 400,000 men; and the
soldiers’ real wages had risen somewhat above their already high
leveT. The menacing spectre of State bankruptcy drew ever
nearer. The old remedy was prescribed : reduction in value of the
currency and increased taxation. The aureus was reduced in size —
in the years down to a.d. 256 to approximately a third of its
original form — while the silver coins were reduced in purity and
size. The denarius of the Severi retained only about half the
silver content in comparison with the Neronian standard, and the
double denarii under Caracalla and the later emperors (Anto-
niniani) were an overvalued fiduciary issue, which, in the same
period of time, ultimately contained only about a third the silver
content when compared with two Neronian denarii. These
measures were to a large extent inflationary ^ in character, and in
the case of silver ended in disguising the true character of the
coin; as they were not merely temporary measures, they caused
a rise in prices, henceforth, after Commodus, to twice and almost
three times their former level®. The rise in taxation consisted for
the time being (p. 269) not in an increase in the normal items of
taxation (land-taxes, poll-taxes, trade-taxes, etc.) corresponding to
the devaluation of the currency — which such a step would have
made plain to see — but in supplementary taxation. Thus there
was levied a supplementary tax in gold, the aurum coronarium
(originally a gold crown as a testimony of loyalty to the new ruler,
but a regular exaction from Elagabalus’ time onwards)^. Roman
1 On the question of pay see Note 3, p. 724. They were also paid off in
land after Septimius Severus (Rostovtzeff, ap. cit. p. 378 and, further, Germ.
Ed. n, p. 141). On the claims of the soldiers see Ps.-Aristides xxxv k, 30.
® On insufficient production of silver as a further factor see p. 277, but
that is also a sign of the failure of the State economy. ® See Note 3.
* On Roman taxes and the Const. Antoniniana see Dio Lxxviir, 9, 4 ^7.
On Roman trade-taxes, S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 24 (A. W. Persson, Staat
und Manufaktur im rSm. Retche, p. 58 sq.). A general lowering of taxes
under Severus Alexander is most improbable (see above, p. 31). One
VII, VI] INFLATION AND TAXATION 263
taxes were now levied on provincials and provincial taxes on
Romans, Above all there were the requisitions in kind^ and among
those imposed on the landholder, so far as he did not substitute
a money payment, was the provision of soldiers from among his
coloni. It was just the financial and monetary difficulties that forced
the State to raise the supplies it needed in kind instead of using
for their purchase the declining revenue from taxation, and this
change again favoured to some extent the establishment of a
natural economy. The annona-oorn was now demanded without
payment offered, and the same applies to soldiers’ clothing and
to the wares which from about the beginning of the third century
were extorted from the Egyptian producers, the anabolicae species \
these were at first distributed among several of the chief cities of
the Empire, but from Aurelian’s time were set aside for the sole
benefit of the city of Rome. The irregular impositions for troops
on the march remained, and in view of prevailing conditions
became heavier.
The State’s demands were the more oppressive because the
taxable resources had shrunk in the previous century, and from
the time of the Severi onwards more and more land passed out of
cultivation. Hence the claims of the State were fundamentally
incapable of fulfilment. Yet the very existence of emperors and
Empire alike depended on their being fulfilled. Thus began the
fierce endeavour of the State to squeeze the population to the last
drop. Since economic resources fell short of what was needed,
the strong fought to secure the chief share for themselves with a
violence and an unscrupulousness well in keeping with the origin
would expect an increase in the rates of taxation in view of higher
prices, and the beer-tax in Egypt seems to have increased in a.d. 238 as
compared with the second century (so editors to P. Oxy. xir, 1433, 52).
On the other side, it looks as if the Egyptian trade-taxes in 276 were
still the same as in the time of Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus (P. Tebt. 1 1,
287; B,G,U, 9=Wilcken, Cbrest 551, 29 sq,). This still remains a
problem which it would be easier to solve if the thesis of A. C. Johnson
\Amer. Journ, of JrcL xxxviii, 1934, p. S 3 ^?-) 1 ^ accepted that Egypt as
a ‘self-contained country’ had ^a fiduciary currency’ till the reign of
Gallienus, that the debasement of this currency had no influence on the
price-level and that the rise of prices is to be attributed to bad harvests or
bad management. But any such explanation has in turn to meet serious
reasons for doubt (see Heichelheim, £cm. Hist, ni, 10, Feb. 1935, p. 7, n. 3),
Money penalties also, despite the devaluation of the denarius, remained un-
changed under Severus Alexander as under Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Aurelius. Dig. n, 4, 24 compared with Gaius iv, 46 (G. Mickwitz, Geld
und IVirtschc^t im ram, Reich des 4 Jahrhunderis n. Chr. p. 37).
264 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
of those in power and with a soldiery accustomed to plunder. The
full rigour of the law was let loose on the population. Soldiers acted
as bailiffs or wandered as secret police through the land. Those
who suffered most were, of course, the propertied class. It was re-
latively easy to lay hands on their property, and in an emergency
they were the class from whom something could be extorted most
frequently and most quickly. Consequently, by the system already
in force in the previous two centuries, they had been held
ultimately responsible and liable for providing taxes and other
impositions. For the same reason they were now the first to
sufer from the exactions of the State. At the same time, quite
apart from questions of finance, there was a purely political
motive at work — the desire to shatter the privileged position
of the bourgeoisie. A bitter resistance was put up by the bour-
geoisie, supported as it was by some of the emperors, especially
in lands such as Africa and Spain which were far removed from the
war zone, and in which the bourgeoisie was economically still
relatively intact. The civil wars of the third century and the
frightful period of anarchy after Severus Alexander were the
result, in the course of which the infuriated soldateska and its
leaders indulged in orgies of brutality. We gain a vivid picture
of the assassinations and confiscations, the terrorism and spying,
and the sacking of cities from Herodian, the speech of pseudo-
Aristides addressed to the Emperor Philip, and also from Cassius
Dio, the Historia Augusta, and other sources.
There is no doubt that the inhumanity of the struggle was
due in part to the hatred which the peasant soldiery, drawn from
the lowest class, felt for the bourgeoisie, but it would be mis-
taken to over-stress this factor, to regard class hatred as the sole
motive, and the civil war as a purely social revolution, which
aimed at establishing the dictatorship of the proletariate. Such a
view is disproved by the fact that not all the soldiers were members
of the proletariate, some of them owned property^ ; and moreover
the poor suffered at least as much, perhaps more, than the rest
from the general economic pressure resultant on unsettled con-
ditions, and in particular from the violence of the soldiery. The
petitions of Scaptopare (a.d. 238; p. 83) and Arague (a.d. 244—
247; p. 90), and above all Herodian’s narrative in Book VII show
this quite clearly. The proletariate may, it is true, look on with
malice at attacks on the bourgeoisie, and the mob may join in
plundering them, small folk who are oppressed by soldiers may
1 Rostovtzeff, op. cit. pp. 376 sqq.. Germ. Ed. n, pp. 1 37 ryy.
VII, vi] RIGID STATE-SOCIALISM 265
appeal to soldiers who are their relatives or friends and beg for
a kind of protection — but that does not provide any proof in social
revolution from below. And if villagers in their appeals to the
emperors declare that they cannot endure their present vexations
and if the emperors confirm what they say, the Gonclusion cannot
be drawn that the emperors had made the lower classes their one
political support L
In connection with all this, compulsion and State-socialist regu-
lation had established themselves more firmly. These had gradually
come into being, their first beginnings dating back to the time of
Trajan and Hadrian, when they had been applied with modera-
tion, but now they had developed into an established system, and
hence had been incorporated in the final synthesis devised by the
new political theorists at the beginning of the third century
(cf. l)ig. l). He who was not especially privileged, or who was not
excepted for the performance of other services to the State — as
imperial official and soldier, or, again, as lessee on a large or small
scale of the emperor’s estates and mines, as navicularius, mercator^
faber, centonarius, etc.,^ — had to undertake the municipal munera
according to his powers, financial, intellectual or physical. Since
the population had declined, and the number of those who
might be called upon for services was still further reduced through
privilege and exception, whereas more and more land had gone
out of cultivation, the demands made successively on the remaining
men of means were ever more quickly recurrent, the land re-
maining untilled was forcibly attached to the communities or the
neighbouring landowners^, and the financial guarantees of the
decaproti and curiales were more and more frequently realized.
Arrest, confiscation, and execution hung over their heads like a
sword of Damocles*. The proceedings of the city councils (which
in the year 199 were set up also in the Egyptian metropokis on the
model of the rest of the Empire), councils which did not know how
they were to meet the old and the newly imposed burdens, and
whom they were to find to act as archonies and to undertake the
liturgies of office, grimly illustrate the growing misery of the age®.
^ See N. H. Baynes in J.R.S. xix, 1929, p. 299 sq.
® It is doubtful if these compulsory associations go back to Severus
Alexander despite S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 33, 2.
® P. Thead. 16 (a.d. 307); P.S.I. 292 (third century); Cod. Just, xi,
59, I (Aurelian).
* Cf. P. Oxy. XII, 1477 (third-fourth century).
® P. Oxy. XIV, 1662 (a.d. 246); XII, 1413 (a.d. 270-5).
266 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
'Evon th.t navicularii complained and at times threatened to strike,
as at Arelate in 201
Yet the vicious circle, or rather spiral, could not be broken.
If the propertied class buried their money, or sacrificed two-thirds
oftheir estate to escape from a magistracy®, or went so far as to
give up their whole property in order to get free of the domains rent
and the non-propertied class ran away, the State replied by increas-
ing the pressure. It demanded from the bodies liable (p. 258) that
theyshould produce and identify thosewho had to undertake litur-
gies, and enrolled on occasion (as in Egypt under Probus) the whole
remaining population of the villages for extraordinary manual
labour in helping to maintain the irrigation system^. Moreover, in
view of the steady drop of revenue from taxation, and the decline
m the production and supply of gold and silver, the State resorted
to repeated debasement and increase of the currency in circulation.
The mints worked with feverish activity®. The gold coinage
remained pure, but the coins became smaller and smaller, and in
the end they were only accepted by weight. After 256 the silver
currency of the Empire in its chief denomination, the Antoni-
nianus, lost 75 per cent., and ultimately 98 per cent., of its
silver content; in other words it became silver-washed copper. The
Egyptian provincial currency, which itself was of lower grade than
the Imperial, followed suit though less drastically and rapidly. The
mistrust of the ‘new coinage’ was general: in 260 the Egyptian
money-changers of Oxyrhynchus refused to accept it at its official
valuation®, though the State itself seems to have made its demands
in accordance with the old scale of values (see above, p. 263, note).
In Egyptian contracts the parties preferred to reckon on the basis
of the ‘old Ptolemaic coinage'^.’ Prices in Egypt rose after about
280 to from fourteen to twenty times their original level.
In these disturbed and catastrophic decades of the third
century countless people, especially of the bourgeois middle-class,
were ruined and impoverished, and these were precisely the men
who had brought into being and maintained the economic pro-
^ Dessau 6987.
® Wilcken, Chrest. 402 (a.d. 250).
® P.S.I. 292 (third century).
* P. Oxy. xir, 1409.
® S.H.A. Aurel. 38, 2 for the number of workers at the mint.
® P. Oxy. XII, 1411; it is uncertain whether the devalued billon Anto-
niniani or the devalued billon tetradrachm is referred to. See Mickwitz,
op. cit. p. 52.
’’ Stud. Pal. XX, 71, II (a.d. 268-270).
VII, VI] CURRENCY: BREAKING OF THE BOURGEOISIE 267
sperity of former times. The wasteful policy of the State, the
constant interference with private economic life, and the infla-
tions, amounted to a landslide beneath which a vast amount
that was of value was crushed out of existence. How great a
part was played by the spread of the system of liturgies is
shown by the abundance of Egyptian papyri bearing on this
theme. Admittedly conditions were not the same everywhere.
Africa, the home of Septimius Severus, and Syria, the home of
his wife, enjoyed a privileged position. So too did Germany and
the Danubian regions because of the soldiers who came from them.
And Britain, which lay far from the centre of things, and where
city life was less of a determining factor than elsewhere in the
Empire, actually enjoyed a relative prosperity in the third century
(see below, p. 278), though here too after the middle of the cen-
tury the cities declined. Moreover, it remains true that the
bourgeoisie was not wholly destroyed; otherwise Diocletian
could never have maintained the curiales ■&& servants of the State
with property to pledge, and the completion of the municipaliza-
tion of Egypt at the beginning of the fourth century would have
had no meaning. But the bourgeoisie, which had been the typical
representative of a wholly different age, was broken; spiritually
and materially it had received a mortal blow. The well-to-do
bourgeois is now the exception, not the rule. The ‘abundantia’
on which the emperors had once prided themselves, which they
had promised to maintain, and which they had proclaimed on
their coinage, appears undei Probus as a Utopian aspiration^.
Yet although the bourgeoisie had lost incalculably, this does
not mean that the position of the lower classes had in conse-
quence improved. They too suffer and complain, strike and re-
volt; and this ill-will took highly dangerous forms on occasion, as
is shown, for example, by the rising of the Bagaudae in Gaul in
the second half of the third century, or the strike of the monetarii
at Rome in Aurelian’s time. Since, however, the masses turned
upon the well-to-do alone as those who were squeezing them to
the last drop 2 — to turn upon the soldiery who did the same they
were too weak — the ruin of the bourgeoisie was hastened in this
way too. Thus the end of it all was discontent, depopulation, flight,
and banditry among those who had been uprooted, and together
with this a shortage of labour. It is estimated that the numb^ers of
the population fell by approximately one third, from seventy to fifty
1 S.H.A. Prob. 20, 6; 23, 2 sqq. See Rostovtzeff, op. cit. pp. 416 sqq.,
Germ. Ed. ii, pp. 176 sqq.
^ For an illustration see the late parallel in Libanius, Or. xlvii (r. a.d. 395).
268 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
millions^. Pestilence and a growing reluctance to have children
contributed to the decline. Documents from the Egyptian
village of Theadelphia dating from the late third and early fourth
centuries give appalling glimpses of the desertion of farms and
depopulation^. The State, which addressed its demands to the
villagers as a body, by its own act drove them one after the other
on to the streets. The resultant banditry, which the State in turn
tried to meet by a special police force, took fantastic forms. In
the petitions to the emperor the threat of flight is the ‘ultimum
refugium’ and among the common questions which used to be
put to an oracle in Egypt three standard types were : ‘ Am I to
become a beggar?’ ‘Shall I take to flight?’ and ‘Is my flight to
be stopped?’®
When things had gone so far, it was impossible to turn back;
all that remained was to follow the road to the end. This meant
guarding against a general flight, announcing compulsory labour,
and binding all classes — or at least all who did not belong to a
privileged caste- — to their professions, the peasant farmer to his
land and forced labour, the State-employed worker (p. 272) to his
workshop, the trader, including the navicularius^ to his business or
his corporation, the small property-owner to his duties in connection
with liturgies, the large property-owner to the curia, the soldier to
his military service, and so on. By one means or another the develop-
ment had to reach its conclusion in other respects also. Much was
achieved in this direction, after Gallienus and the Illyrian emperors
(Aurelian in particular) had shown the way, by the far-reaching
reforms of Diocletian and Constantine. With these emperors we
rightly begin a new era, even though much was not really com-
pleted until the fourth and fifth centuries.
The ancient world did notretirefromthearenawithoutastruggle;
the history of the third century shows how it fought for what re-
mained of political and spiritual freedom against the constraints
of tyranny and dogma. But the same century shows how urgent
was the need for peace, a need which ultimately led to acquiescence
in Diocletian’s regime, the more so since the external dangers con-
tinued undiminished. From the reign of Gallienus onwards the
army had been re-organized ; it had become less national, but readier
for action, politically more trustworthy, and a more efficient instru-
ment of power. The unity of the Empire was restored by Aurelian,
the internal chaos became less pronounced. The organization of
^ E. Stein, Geschichte des spatrom. Reiches 1, p. 3. ® Cf. P. Thead. 16.
® Ditt.® 888 (a.d. 238); O.G.LS. sig (a.d. 244-7); P-Oxy. xii, 1477
(third-fourth century).
VII, vi] STABILIZATION: RESTORATION 269
the corporations on a basis of compulsion goes back in essentials
to Aurelian^. The stabilization of the currency, which was in
complete disorder, and hence of the revenue from taxation, was
taken in hand. Aurelian, cautiously feeling his way, renewed the
gold issues, and by some means or other (the details are controversial)
fixed a value for the very debased billon coins (p. 307). Diocletian
began again to coin in pure silver, reviving the Neronian standard,
even though the extent of this coinage was limited after the
‘ thorough discrediting ’ of the currency in the third century®. He
also organized a regular system, governed by the gold pound, with
gold, silver, and large or small billon or copper issues (p. 403 s^.).
It is possible that on this occasion the Aurelian billon piece, which
was continued in the Diocletian petty cash issues, was again de-
valued to correspond to its actual buying power, a reform whose
immediate result was a further unsettlement of the market, which
in its turn occasioned Diocletian’s famous edict in 301 regulating
prices and wages®, though it may be admitted that as regards eco-
nomic policy the value of this edict must have been very limited. At
any rate, in spite of the new copper inflation of the fourth century^,
the currency was on the whole pretty well stabilized, especially
after the solidus had been linked in a.o. 307 with the gold pound
at a fixed ratio of seventy-two to one.
The price paid for the restoration of the Empire was twofold.
First, the absolute State had come, catering for the population at
large, schematic, appealing to mass-intelligence. Secondly, a
complete State-socialism was in force, which with its terrorism by
officials, its over-emphasized restrictions on the individual, its
progressive State-interference, and its burdensome taxation and
liturgies, previously not so clearly defined, and its methods of
^ E. Groag in Fierteljahrsch. f. Sox.- tmd Wirtsch.-Gesch. n, 1904, p. 493.
2 Purchase of gold under compulsory powers by the State is attested by
P. Oxy. XVII, 2106 (beginning of the fourth century). The fixed price is
100,000 for a pound. If these are denarii (as the editors take it), whereas
the edict of Diocletian (xxx, i) provides for 50,000 as the maximum price,
this reflects the recent inflation (see n. 4).
® See p. 338. If, on the other hand, the theory of Giesecke {Antikes Geld-
wesen, pp. lio sqq.) is accepted, the complete devaluation of the billon-
double denarius goes back not to Diocletian but to Aurelian, who had made
it equal to ^ of the Septimius Severus denarius, which still contained 50 per
cent, of silver. Giesecke thus interprets the much debated legend xx. i.
^ This inflation goes back to Constantine and was about sixfold in the
Empire in the years 310-335. It then once more died away. In Egypt,
which suffered exploitation, it continued and rose by the year 400 to 45,000
270 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
realizing its demands, acted very much as before, except in so far
as the union with the Christian Church, from the time of Con-
stantine, gave the system a religious veneer, and stamped subjec-
tion as resignation to the will of God. Those to whom this develop-
ment does not appeal must reflect that, despite all the complaints
and opposition, which still continued, this was the only way, under
the circumstances, in which the Empire could survive, and
remnants of the old bourgeois society, of. the old culture, and
incidentally of the old economic system could be saved. Finally,
as we shall see, this was the only way in which a new culture could
mature, though in a greatly changed form and realizing itself
perhaps in opposition to the State rather than through it.
VII. ECONOMIC SYSTEM IN THE STATE-
SOCIALISTIC ERA
If we seek within the framework of the stricter State-socialist
system, in the more rigid form which it assumed during the third
century, to gain an impression of the economy itself, especially
after the middle of the century, it is by no means easy to recon-
struct a clear picture. The Historia Augusta needs checking by
other evidence. The dated documentary material is not very
plentiful, except for Egypt. Diocletian’s edict ‘de pretiis’ dates
from the year 301, which is late for our purpose, though the con-
ditions during the second half of the third century are necessarily
also mirrored in it. The 'Expositio totius mundi et gentium’, and the
' Notitia dignitatum’ , both of which, especially the first, give abundant
material, are later still, dating from a time when the reforms made
under Diocletian and Constantine had already had their effect.
Statistics, which alone would give us a solid basis on which to
work, are lacking for this as for other periods. The danger is great
of over-stressing the darkness, or, alternatively, the high lights in
the picture. Hence it is necessary to proceed deductively — as was
done above — and to base our judgments on the general conditions
of the age in the first instance.
If the available evidence for the production of commodities in
the several countries at particular times is set out^, it will be found
that the products of the various regions, including those in excess
of local needs, are hardly different, apart from a few instances,
from those established above with special reference to the second
^ As will be found in the general works of Gummerus, Charlesworth,
Rostovtzeff or the monographs of Collingwood, Persson and others cited in
the bibliography to this chapter.
VII, vii] PRODUCTION AND INTERCHANGE 271
century. Individual exceptions occur: thus during Aurelian’s
reign^ the vine was apparently cultivated less in Italy than it had
been previously so that viticulture had to be assisted by the em-
peror; thus too Probus once more permitted the cultivation of the
vine in Gaul and Spain, and in the other provinces, without
limitation^. Similarly in the middle of the century the output of
Gallic pottery and Spanish minerals declined, with a compensating
increase of British products, and the textile and arms industries
appear to have increased production. Interchange of goods occurs.
Provincial (i.e. internal) trade on a smaller or larger scale prevails
in many parts, especially now in Britain, where there were local
fairs (p. 293), as also at the Thracian city of Scaptopare(in238)and
at Baetocaece in Syria® (sometime between 253 and 259) ac-
cording to immemorial custom. Interprovincial trade also con-
tinued in being (see below, p. 276). There remains for consideration
commerce with the outside world along four main trade-routes.
One led to central Africa, though since the decline of the kingdom
of Meroe it passed via Adulis instead of Meroe. A second
stretched to the South-east, starting in Egypt and travelling via
the Red Sea to Arabia and India^. There was also the route to
China®, starting from Syria and passing through Palmyra, Doura,
and Parthia, or alternatively from South Russia. Fourthly, there
was the route to the North, which led to free Germany, beginning
on the northern or north-western frontier.
Nevertheless production and interchange were profoundly
altered. This alteration is most clearly visible if we survey the con-
stituent elements making up the sum total of economic activity,
which show a marked shift in the centre of gravity accompanied
by a corresponding change in productive methods. Thus State
enterprise was a sphere of economic life which increased in
importance ; after the State had succeeded in securing control over
private economy as described above, it was but a step to its direct
participation in the economic field. In view of the growing
1 S.H.A. Jurel. 48, 2. _
® S.H.A. Proh. 18, 8; Eutropius rx, 17; Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvii, 3.
® Ditt.® 888; LG.R.R. m, 1020. Cf. Dig. l, ii, i (Modestinus).
* For Indian embassies Stobaeus, &/, i, 3, 56 (of the reign of Elagabalus);
S.H.A. Jurel. 41, 10 (to Aurelian, together with Bactrians, Seres, Axumites
and other envoys); Eusebius, Vita Const, iv, 7 (to Constantine, together with
Blemmyes and Ethiopians).
® Sixteen Roman coins of the time from Tiberius to Aurelian have been
found in the province of Shan-si {The Jcademy 'xxtx, 1886, p. 316). The
Chinese annals (see above, p, 235, n. i) speak of connections also in the third
century.
THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
identification of emperor and State, the economic activity of the
emperor, which in the early years of the Empire can still be re-
garded as the private activity of an individual (p. 234), must now
be considered a form of State enterprise. Septimius Severus marks
an important stage in this development (see above, p. 27 ^y.). State-
ownership of land, which had already been increased by confisca-
tions in the second half of the first century, was again extended
by him and the military anarchy. The working of imperial
domains had been practised in the Hellenistic age, especially
under the Ptolemies ; that model was followed by Rome and this
in its turn generally encouraged the adoption of the system of
the colonate. In the second and third centuries, however, not only
was the State (or the emperor) the largest landed proprietor, it was
also the biggest owner of mines and quarries, and in course of time
came to be the greatest industrialist, having gained control of a
specific category of industries. This last development results from
an extension of organizations which had existed from the beginnings
of imperial times to supply the needs of the court, the army, and the
State (such as mints, builders’ yards, brick-kilns, textile-mills, iron-
foundries, and occasionally armourers’ workshops) . Governmental
arms-manufactories in great numbers were now erected in the
proximity of the emperor and his army, and there was an increase
in the imperial production of wool and linen, of low and high grade
textiles and clothing which involved an expansion in the purple
dye-works. Though we have evidence for this process in the
opening years of the third century (p. 273), it presumably falls in
its more intense form in the second half of the third century
and reaches its final development in the fourth. As a result the
State could more and more provide for its own needs and so could
substitute the compulsory contributions in kind which were sup-
plied by private skilled labour^. A system of forced labour was
imposed on the workers in the manufactories, in much the same
way as on workers for the Ptolemaic State-monopolies or on coloni,
and they were organized on a semi-military basis. They were
employed either in imperial workshops, or, as in the case of the
weavers, at home. The materials were furnished to them, being
partly procured through taxation in kind; a fixed amount of
work was allotted to them and duly collected.
It has already been mentioned that trade — wholesale and retail
— became increasingly subject to governmental control. Severus
1 Seeabove,p. 263. P. Lips. 57 (a.d. 261); P. Oxy.xir, 1414 (a.d. 270-5),
1-16.
VII, vii] STATE ECONOMY 273
Alexander and Aurelian by this means, together with the quicken-
ing of the old idea of euthenia^ put the supply of vital necessities
to Rome, which had been threatened, on a secure basis^. The
same is true of other cities, as those of Egypt This develop-
ment could link up with the remains of hellenistic retail trade-
monopolies {e.g. of oil in Egypt®), and also with the old
production-monopolies — both of which in the intervening im-
perial era had been modified into a system of concessions^.
Supply by means of anabolicae species meant nationalization.
Transport was also largely nationalized®. All this intervention,
and the direct participation of the State in economic activities
with the aid of forced and often highly recalcitrant labour®,
represents a drift towards Oriental forms of economic organiza-
tion. Yet they arose, not from any ideological considerations (for
such considerations were not in fact primary at all in the emer-
gence of State-socialism), but from the struggle with the problems
of finance and employment. This is why limits were fixed to direct
State participation in economic activity, so that this, generally
speaking, went no further than was dictated by the need to secure
essential supplies for the army, the court, and the imperial officials,
and thus, to take a single example, the organization of the
textile industry as a whole was neither nationalized {i.e, made
into a monopoly), nor was nationalization intended'^. That no
principle was involved is shown by the fact that denationalization
is also to be found in both agriculture and industry. Thus State-
owned land in the neighbourhood of the German limes was
allowed to relapse into private ownership in the third century, and
State-owned land lying barren and uncultivated in Egypt was
offered for sale. Corroborative testimony is to be found in the
supplanting of the State enterprise in the British mining industry
by private contractors (p. 291).
A second characteristic feature of the age is the advance of
feudal economy. We are dealing here partly with the maintenance
and further development of conditions which prevailed in the
^ S.H.A. Jlex. Sev. 33, 2; Aierel. 46—8.
^ E.g. P. Oxy. XII, 1455 (a.d. 275).
® Stud. Pal. XXII, no. 177 (a.d. 137); P. Oxy. xii, 1455 (a.d. 275).
Cf. P. Gnomon (probably of the reign of Antoninus Pius), §102.
^ See vol. X, p. 386
® S.H.A. Jurel. 47, 3.
® S.H.A. Aierel. 38, 2.
For a private weapon-manufactory worked by slaves as late as the end
of the fourth century see Libanius, Or. xtu, 21 and passim.
274 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
first and second centuries. Hence we find latijundia on the Italian
model, such as have been described above (p. 238 jj'.), besides in-
digenous great estates among the Celts, in South Russia and else-
where, and landed property which the city bourgeoisie acquired
or the veterans earned and which they exploited at first as ‘agri-
colae boni’ by intensive cultivation, but gradually came to run
by non-specialized large-scale production (pp. zyo, 254). Those
of this old-established wealthy class who were adaptable and knew
how to move with the times were able to maintain themselves in
the face of the difficulties of the third century, and actually gained
more than they lost. In the third century there appeared beside
them the class of nouveaux riches. It was composed of men who
had understood how to turn the troubled times and their position
in the new State to their own advantage, and to secure immunity
from economic burdens for themselves. They rose to power not
so much as homines oeconomici by virtue of their commercial ability
and business energy, as the old bourgeoisie had done, but rather
by unscrupulousness, extortion, bribery, and exploitation of the
political constellation of the moment, though it is true that business
initiative was united to those qualities. Soldiers and officers,
officials, large contractors, profiteers, and speculators of every
kind made up this category. In Italy, Gaul, Germany, Britain, the
Danubian regions, Africa, Egypt, Syria and Palestine, the province
of Asia, and, in fact, throughout the Empire, large estates became
increasingly common in the third century, whether the property
was long in the same hands or newly acquired, whether the land
was public or private in origin, whether the soil was good or
bad, and they gradually imprinted their mark on the age. The
feudalism, which had been predominant at the end of the Repub-
lican era, began to return; the chief change being that this new
feudalism was not so much a city phenomenon as the old, but
began to withdraw more and more to the land. The owners lived
with increasing frequency amidst their coloni and the artisans of
the estate in the villas themselves, as the splendid remains in
the Moselle valley, in Britain, and in Africa show. In the villas
goods were produced in the first instance to meet the producers’
own needs (in providing the essentials of food and clothing and
material for building and packing), but there was also production
for the State (as taxes in kind), and for the market. Manufactories
for processing the wool, brick-works and potteries for utilizing
the clay, had associated themselves with agriculture as subsidiary
forms of production. Mines were also in the hands of the great
landlords, and on occasion they held fairs in the villages they
VII, vii] FEUDAL CITY ECONOMY 375
owned The period of anarchy and of the crisis in currency
encouraged «^«-economy and the industrialization of the villas,
together with the abandonment of the cities and their unpleasant
atmosphere, so that in the fourth and fifth centuries a closed house-
economy became ultimately the customary system.
The greater the spread of State and feudal economy typifying
the new system, the greater the decline in an economy based on a
free peasantry and on the city. Yet decline did not mean destruc-
tion. There was a free peasantry in the third century, as also at a
later date quite apart from the soldier peasantry created under
the Severi — and city life also continued. Yet both cities and
peasantry suffered appallingly for reasons that need not be re-
peated here. The economic structure as a whole was even more
affected by the fatal decline of city economy than by the dying out
of the free middle-class peasantry. The storm of political disasters
which burst over those who had no political power, the interven-
tion of the State and its use of compulsion, the general insecurity®
affecting currency and communications in particular, the de-
terioration and closing of roads, the commandeering of shipping
by the State, the permanent contraction of the available market
through the decay of the consumer class in the cities, through
provincial ‘autarky,’ and through the State and the feudal land-
lords meeting their own needs in their own closed system, and,
last not least, the contraction in the resources of unfree labour —
such are the factors which undermined the foundations of the
old city economy, which crippled enterprise and initiative, and
which prevented the growth of capital. Where urbanization had
set in relatively late (as for instance in Britain), it was more and
more rapidly reversed than elsewhere, yet there too in the
course of the third century city economy (in the East to a less, in
the West to a greater degree) was forced to give ground to such
an extent that the part it plays in the fourth century is only of
minor importance. This economy could not be wholly destroyed
simply because the cities, though impoverished, continued in
being, and accordingly there still existed a demand on the part of
the city population, though admittedly it was for cheap articles.
Moreover, the o/^oj-economy of the feudal landlords never be-
came complete, so that they (like the wholesale dealers, to whom
we shall return presently) stood in need of luxuries which naturally
^ I.G.R.R. IV, 1381 (c. A.D. 260); cf. Bruns, Fontef, 61 (a.d. 138).
Cf. the Egyptian peasantry; M. Gelzer, St^^d. zur byz. Verwaltung
Jgyptens, p. 75.
^ S,H.A. Prob. 20, 5 {mox secura res 23, 3.
276 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
could not be manufactured in the oikos but called for specialists
who would normally live in the city. So city production of a
kind remained, those responsible for it being on the whole of the
artisan class. Even more indispensable was the part played by the
city through retailers and pedlars, and above all in the wholesale
trade, which, indeed, no longer dealt in mass-produced articles but
in luxuries, for which there was a considerable demand from the
feudal landlords and potentates, a demand met not only by the
neighbouring city, but also byremote parts including foreign coun-
tries. These facts explain why a respected independent bourgeois
class of wholesale merchants could maintain itself in the cities,
especially in the old commercial centres of Gaul, Syria, Egypt,
and Asia Minor (but also in Britain and Germany), even though
the significance of the country markets for the supply of local
needs increased.
Another very important change in the economic system con-
cerns its methods and concentration. A more primitive economy
emerges. There is a decline in bourgeois intensive capitalistic
production, while older forms indigenous to the land reappear.
Full capitalistic development— if we survey the whole field of
ancient economic history— was only an interlude. The State and
feudal organization of agriculture was less thorough and hence less
productive. Industry relapsed into small-scale production (work in
the home, work for wages, skilled craftsmanship which was practised
also by itinerant craftsmen^). An exception is to be found in the
industry of the large estates on occasion, and more especially in
State industry, which offered serious competition to private in-
dustry in supplying the demands of the government and the army,
and which necessarily involved a curtailment of the part to be
played by the private producer. There is a further decline in
quality, except for articles which are definitely to be regarded as
luxuries for the upper class. As with quality so with quantity:
production becomes less intense. Arable land lies fallow, not
only in Italy but also elsewhere — in Egypt, for example, where
land belonging to the State was forced upon cities to secure its
cultivation (p. 265). The land was exhausted by over-cultivation,
but the chief trouble was the lack of labour. Egyptian vineyards
fall into decay 2, and at the end of the third century the Egyptian
irrigation system has ceased to function^. In the mines, as on the
1 Many examples in Ed. Died, de fretiis, on which see Gummerus in
P.W. s.v. Industrie und Handel, cols. 1527 sqq.
^ Stud. Pal. XX, no. 58, col. ii, 11 . i i sqq. (a.d. 266).
® P. Oxy. xn, 1409 (a.d. 278)} P. Thead. 16 (a.d. 307).
VII, VII] DECLINE IN PRODUCTION AND TRADE 277
land, there is a shortage of labour, with which the monetary crisis of
the third century may perhaps be connected. An actual exhaustion
of the mines themselves (as happened to some extent in the Spanish
tin-workings) is secondary by comparison. A marked gap was
naturally left by the loss from Aurelian’s time of the output from
the Dacian mines. Under these circumstances the encouragement
by the emperors of mining for precious metals is comprehensible.
The position of industry was unfavourable. We have already
referred to the weakness of Italian industry, and of the Gallic
potteries. In this connection the German invasions did incalcul-
able damage. Egyptian industry, which through forced contribu-
tion had been further limited and regulated, also suffered. Like the
Shepherds’ revolts in earlier times, the invasion of the Blemmyes
in the third century and later and the risings of Firmus under
Aurelian and of Achilleus under Diocletian did immense harm. De-
vastations, and decline in production, naturally had repercussions
on commerce. The destruction of Palmyra (273) dealt a fatal blow
to that city’s famous trade. At an even earlier date the Gothic
invasions of the Crimea were similarly destructive to the South-
Russian trade. In these chaotic conditions ‘autarky’ spread.
Britain emancipated herself. The obstacles to the interchange of
goods did not yet affect internal trade — which entered on a decline
in the fourth and fifth centuries in the course of the development
of ci^o^-economy — but their consequences were marked in the
interprovincial and export trades. The preferential treatment
accorded to the interests of the army and the State endangered in
Italy and elsewhere the import of supplies from other parts of the
Empire, and created conditions of famine^. The Indian trade
deteriorated, as the coins show, trade with Germany suffered as a
result of the depreciation of the currency (see above, p. 257), and
the Eastern trade was further handicapped by the elimination of
Palmyra. Thus there was a quantitative decline in trade. More-
over, its forms grew simpler; barter and natural economy became
commoner in view of the calamities which befell the currency in
the second half of the century; and the fact that the commercial
centres were frequently transferred into the country (see pp. 271,
n. 3, 293) hardly suggests enhanced commercial activity. There
was thus a marked retrogression in the former commercial inter-
dependence which had been so strikingly characteristic of earlier
times. It gave place to a resolution into individual lands and
1 S.H.A. Aurel. 48, i (Rome). Cf. RostovtzefF, op. cit. p. 618, n. 39;
Germ. ed. ir, p. 359.
278 THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
regions which desired to achieve a substantial degree of self-
sufficiency. Throughout the Empire a state of crisis made its
presence felt, gradually arising and becoming increasingly acute
down to the time of Aurelian and Diocletian, and affecting
economic life in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, the Danubian region,
Gallo-Germany, Spain, and Africa, just as profoundly as in
Cyrene, Greece, or Italy.
Yet exaggeration must be avoided; and these statements re-
quire qualification at numerous points. Thus the recession was
not universal, nor was its incidence everywhere on the same scale.
The chief exception is Britain, whose peak of development, as we
have seen (p. 240), was attained precisely in the third and fourth
centuries. This paradox is connected with the country’s situation
on the periphery of the Empire, and with the fact that its economic
development is, relatively speaking, deeply rooted in indigenous
forms. British agriculture, pottery, mining, iron and textile
industry were flourishing, as was the trade within the province,
so that in addition to owners of large estates, wealthy and in-
dependent business men and tradesmen were seen. African
agriculture with its fields of olives and corn was by no means
ruined in the third century, even in its second half, and Egyptian
agriculture also survived (p. 252). The Syrian-Palmyrene trade
maintained itself in a critical era under the protection of the
Palmyrene kingdom^, and Antioch remained a prosperous city
even after the abandoning of Doura and the capture of Palmyra
(p. 305). The Alexandrine usurper Firmus was a very well-to-do
wholesale trader, who dispatched his ships to India, and who
appears also to have had connections with the paper industry^.
Diocletian’s edict de preiiis, which in the version known to us
was meant to apply to the Eastern half of the Empire, also fixes
the prices for a series of Western textile products, and this
evidence allows us to infer that some degree of interdependence
between the various parts of the Empire still continued in exist-
ence. There are further considerations to be entered on the credit
side. The development of land on an emphyteutic tenure is found
(p. 252). Moreover, the system of State economy with planned
production cannot be arbitrarily condemned as primitive and in-
efficient in view, for example, of hellenistic evidence disproving this
verdict, though it is undeniable that the best age of the Ptolemies
^ For a Palmyrene trading association I.G.R.R. iii, 1045 = 0 .( 3 . 7 . 5 .
646 (between a.d. 263/4 and 266/7).
® S. H. A. ^uad. tyr. {Firmus, etc.) 3, 2 sqq. F or Indian embassies see p. 27 1 ,
n. 4.
VII, vii] LIMITS OF THE DECLINE 279
introduced the private initiative of high capitalism to bolster up
the system. Indeed, the State manufactories at the close of our
period can point to a high level of achievement. Moreover,
the system of payments in kind, which comes into evidence in
the course of the century and has attracted much attention, has
recently been shown ^ to have been by no means general, and
furthermore not to be regarded as primitive without qualification,
since it originates in the conscious attempt to secure a sufficiency
of the necessities of life for State functionaries while temporarily
dispensing with a coinage whose values fluctuated so violently.
So we come to the decisive witness. If after the political re-con-
solidation at the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth
century, and after the social-political re-alignments in the fourth
century, there was a relatively quick economic recovery, this
implies that during the time of the great crisis enough must have
been preserved for it to be possible to take up the threads anew,
in much the same way as Attic economy took up the threads after
the crisis of the Peloponnesian War. There can be no denying the
upward trend in the fourth century. Gaul and Germany flourished,
especially after Trhves became an imperial residence. Thewealth of
the Gallic and German, and also of the British, African, Syrian, and
Egyptian great landed proprietors was enormous. The Egyptian
irrigation system began once more to function. The Gallo-German
industry, which met the demands of the army, was expanding.
Industrial production in Syria reached a high level, as a glance at
Diocletian’s edict or the Expodtio totius mundi shows 2. Inter-
provincial and international trade revived with the restoration of
security, though in accordance with the evidence cited above it
was essentially a speculative luxury trade. In the ports of Gaul,
Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, activity returned in the fourth
century. The trade with the East and the South-east, which had
not wholly died out in the third century, along the routes to
Persia, Abyssinia, Arabia, India, and China, increased in volume
despite the destruction of Palmyra and Doura. Admittedly the
standard of the second century was not reached again. Fiscalism,
angareiai^ and inflation had remained ; and the generally primitive
character of the forms of production was a further legacy from the
past. Moreover the economic system was unbalanced, in marked
contrast to the previously prevailing conditions. It was unbalanced
territorially, because the countries, if we disregard the demand
for luxuries, had resolved themselves into separate economic
® Cf. also Libanius, Or. xlii, 21 .
^ Mickwitz, op. cit. pp. 165 sqq.
28o the economic LIFE OF THE EMPIRE [chap.
organisms to a far greater extent than was previously the case.
And it was unbalanced socially because a large number of poor
or impoverished and oppressed peasants and townspeople, whose
feelings found expression on occasion in revolts (such as African
Donatism at the beginning of the fourth century), stood opposed
to a much diminished group (when compared with its previous
size), made up of exploiters and also partly of speculators.
Such were the consequences of a system called into being by
State-socialism. Yet during this historical process, as even the last
piece of evidence indicates, a revolt makes itself felt against the
economic principles around which the system was constructed.
Every age contains within itself both the old and the germ of the new
(p. 255). As State-socialism had been a reaction against exaggerated
individualism, so now in opposition to exaggerated State-socialism
a new individualism arose represented by the feudal landlords.
Among this class were to be found not only those who had derived
their strength from the State, but also others who had grown
strong partly by opposition to it. How many of the great landed
proprietors on the borders of Germany, Mauretania, Syria, Asia
Minor, and even of Italy itself, when the Empire proved incapable
of defending them, had been forced, like the estate owners of
South Russia in the face of the onslaught of the Goths to fight
for their lives with the aid of the levies raised from among their
own coloniX In fact, they acted in the same way with their
limited resources as a Postumus or a Zenobia had done on a grand
scale. Naturally such action increased their power. It is interest-
ing, however, to observe that even those who exploited the State-
socialist system for their own benefit, when they had become
powerful enough, appeared in the ranks of the State’s opponents.
For this is what it amounts to when the powerful feudal land-
owners exploit the superiority of their economic position vis-
a-vis to subordinate State officials in order to escape from
the taxation and services due to the government. The result
was to make still more marked their economic advantage,
and to make still heavier the burdens of the weak, who had
finally no other resource but to take refuge from the State in
the patrocinium of the potentates (including the Church) and
thereby still further enhance the patron’s prestige. This ten-
dency made its appearance in the third century^ and reaches its
1 Rostovtzeff, op. cit. pL xxxvi. Germ. Ed. 11, pi. xxxviii.
® E.g. for Egypt: Preisigke, Sammelh. 4284 (a.o. 207); Heroninus corre-
spondence, P. Flor. u (see the Introduction), middle of the third century;
P. Oxy. XII, 1424 if. A.D. 318).
VII, VII] THE REACTION AGAINST STATE-SOCIALISM 281
full development at the end of the fourth century and the
beginning of the fifth.
Such, then, were the imperious barons who could and did set
themselves up in opposition to State-socialism. The large estates,
as we saw, owed their origin not only to pressure from the
government but also to private initiative. Moreover it was the
individualistic aristocratic class which salved a considerable part
of the ancient culture, whose traditions were still maintained on
the estates (as also in the Christian Church), and with it some
part of the ancient economic system. Accordingly this class
undertook the r6le played by the old bourgeoisie to a greater
degree than did the survivors of that bourgeoisie themselves. It
must be admitted, however, that in the course of this process
there was an increasing tendency to pass from bourgeois city
culture and economy to their feudal-rural equivalents. This
change, however, in spite of a certain limited return to an age in
which individualistically-minded feudal landlords and the Roman
State had once held the balance between them, and in spite of all
survivals down to the Turkish era — marks the real end of the
ancient world.
CHAPTER Vm
BRITAIN
I. CITIES, VILLAS, VILLAGES
I N this chapter an attempt is made to sketch the state of Britain,
apart from political and military affairs, in the third and fourth
centuries. It would be unnatural, in the case of Britain, to follow
rigidly the rule of this volume and end with Constantine the Great;
enough is therefore said about the later fourth century to indicate
the general lines along which events were moving at the close of
the Roman occupation ; but there is no needhere to discuss the social
and economic conditions of early fifth-century Britain in detail.
The close of the Antonine age divides the history of Roman
Britain into two parts, each with a well-marked character of its
own. Thanks to Haverfield’s collection and sifting of evidence
concerning villas’- it has long been known that, so far as these are
concerned, the graph of British prosperity was rising throughout
the third century to a climax in the fourth; and as lately as the
time when Rostovtzeff wrote his Social and Economic History of the
Roman Empire^ it could be argued on this ground that Britain
formed an unexplained exception to the general rule, according to
which the third century was an age of depression and bankruptcy
all over the Empire. Since then, the excavations carried out at
Verulam, one of the chief towns of Britain and in the heart of its
most peaceful district, have altered the perspective in which the
evidence of the villas must be placed.
Verulam, when its magnificent walls were laid out under
Hadrian, was a large and rapidly-growing town®. It continued to
grow for some time, but reached its high-water mark about the
end of the second century, and a decline set in. By the middle of
the century, the process of decay has become evident. By about
275 the walls were to some extent in ruins, the theatre had fallen
into disuse and was being quarried for building-materials, and so
severe was the general dilapidation that, as the excavator writes,
1 In the various Romano-British chapters of the Victoria County Histories',
cf. especially those on Hampshire and Somerset.
2 See chaps, ix— xi for that author’s general view of the third century. For
the statement quoted about Britain, see p. 422.
® R. E. M. Wheeler, Verulamium, pp. 26—28.
VIII, i] THE DECAY OF THE TOWNS 283
Verulam ‘must at this time have borne some resemblance to a
bombarded city.’ The proximate cause of this condition can
hardly have been foreign invasion or civil war : it must have been
sheer economic exhaustion.
In the light of these new facts, others long familiar gain fresh
significance. At Wroxeter the great Hadrianic forum was burnt
down about 160 and rebuilt^. About the end of the third century
it was burnt down again, and lay thereafter in ruins. Here, as at
Verulam, the third century saw prosperity give place to exhaustion.
Evidence of a similar kind, but undated, has been found elsewhere.
At Silchester, some of the best houses fell at some time into slum-
conditions, when people lit their cooking-fires on tessellated
pavements. At Caerwent, the sites of deserted and ruined houses
were used for the erection of an amphitheatre within the walls. It
is tempting to conjecture that the decay of Silchester and Caerwent
may have happened, like that of Verulam and Wroxeter, in the
third century; but even without this conjecture the evidence of a
catastrophe affecting town-life during that century is clear.
Britain was not exempt from the ‘rapid and disastrous decay’
which elsewhere overtook the cities of the Roman world.
The ultimate causes of this decay are a matter of general Roman
history and lie outside the subject of this chapter. But there is
evidence from Britain supporting Rostovtzeff’s view that it was
connected with a reversal of Imperial policy: that whereas earlier
emperors had subsidized and protected urban life, Severus and his
successors looked upon towns as convenient reservoirs of wealth,
easily tapped to defray the general expenses of the Empire. The
evidence consists of certain small inscriptions on Hadrian’s Wall,
implying that parts of it were built at their own charges by the
tribal authorities of Britain and that these parts belong to the
Severan reconstruction rather than to Hadrian’s original work. The
tribes named are the Catuvellauni whose capital was Verulam, the
Durotriges, and possibly (the stone is lost and the reading corrupt)
the Brigantes. The demand for such contributions towards the
defence of the country must in any case have borne hardly on the
tribal cities, whose prosperity had depended more on official
encouragement than on spontaneous growth; and it was even
more significant in what it ultimately implied than in what it
immediately entailed. For ultimately it implied that the central
government was tired of fostering an urban civilization; and, in
Britain at least, town-life was not strongly enough rooted to survive
1 The excavations (1924-7) are still unpublished; but see Sir G. Mac-
donald, Roman Britain 1914—1928, pp. 89—97.
284 BRITAIN [chap.
the change. The tirst phase of romanization, when romanization
meant urbanization, was over. The history of the third and fourth
centuries is the history of a second phase, when Britain was
evolving a new form of civilization, Roman or Roman o-Celtic in
style, but no longer urban in structure.
As thus stated, the position is no doubt over-simplified. The
cities did not cease to exist; politically and juridically they still
served as centres of local government, and they even retained
some economic importance as centres of industry. Here and
there, especially in outlying regions, there was actually an increase
of urban prosperity, as in the little frontier-town of Corbridge^,
whose industrial activity mainly dates from after the time of
Severus. And the general decay of town-life was not uniformly
accepted by the central government as inevitable : on the contrary,
we find Constantins Chlorus making heroic efforts to restore
Verulam^ to its earlier grandeur, and similar efforts were made
elsewhere; but their effects were not proportionate to the labour
and cost expended. The days when the city was economically and
culturally the focus of civilization were gone for good.
In the second phase of romanization, the centre of interest lies
in the villa. This was an isolated farm-house standing in the
middle of its own land, a block of dwelling-house and outbuild-
ings, generally more or less rectangular in shape, enclosing a
farm-yard, not unlike the farm-steadings that exist to-day in
parts of England where the population is not concentrated in
villages. The isolated farm is typical of Celtic agriculture, and
there is reason to think that the Romano-British villa-system owed
some of its characteristic features to the scattered farms of the
pre-Roman country-side. In certain cases, such pre-Roman farms
have been transformed into villas by a process of architectural and
cultural romanization; evidently their owners, substantial and
independent yeomen, were ready to welcome Roman ways of
living and rich enough to pay for their fancy without government
subsidies. In that sense the rise of villas was a more spontaneous
movement than the rise of towns ; and because more spontaneous,
it proved more lasting. Sometimes no doubt a villa was the
bailiff’s residence on an Imperial domain ; sometimes it was built
by a speculator taking up uninhabited land on favourable terms ;
but these were the exceptions. As a rule, villa-dwellers were
British farmers, large or small, who romanized their houses and
themselves of their own free will. The largest among them were
1 Cf. G. S. Keeney, ‘Corstopitum as a civil centre,’ Archaeologia Aeliana,
ser. if, xi, 1934, p. 158. ® Wheeler, op. cit. p. 29.
VIII, i] THE VILLA-SYSTEM 285
no doubt also those same tribal grandees who carried out the
public business of the tribe in the cities, and these would
presumably have town-houses as well as their villas in the
country.
The rise of the villa-system, or perhaps we should say the
systematic romanization of the British farm, was a thing of slow
growth. It began very soon after the Claudian invasion, but
throughout the second century it was only gathering momentum;
even in the fourth, new villas were being built and old ones en-
larged. There is some evidence of a special boom in the early
third century, and it is difficult not to connect this with the
simultaneous check in the growth of towns. If, as has been sug-
gested, the government’s new predatory attitude induced the
higher classes to conceal their wealth as far as possible, they
would live more on their country estates, and allow their town-
houses to fall into disrepair and use them as little as possible;
while those whose duties did not call them to the town would
retire to the country altogether.
This movement into the country must have been further
stimulated by the monetary crisis of the late third century’-. The
violent rise of prices accompanying that event must have made the
ordinary operations of household marketing all but impossible. In
towns, food and all kinds of necessaries must have become un-
procurable; but families living on their own estates could keep
themselves in almost all the necessaries of life independently of
fluctuations in prices, and this was an additional motive for living
in the country. For the villa was to a great extent self-supporting;
and what it could not produce for itself (pottery, window-glass,
ironmongery, and so forth) it could probably at a pinch obtain by
barter, exchanging its own surplus produce. This may partially
account for the way in which many villas tended to develop into
small industrial establishments, smelting lead, working iron,
fulling cloth, making tiles, and so forth. This industrialization of
the villa was never so widespread and seldom so thoroughgoing in
Britain as it was in Belgium, but it was far from rare, and must have
been valuable when money became an insecure means of exchange.
When the Diocletianic re-organization of the Empire intro-
duced a new age of peace and prosperity, within whose radius
Britain was drawn by the work of Constantins Chlorus, a fresh
attempt was made to stimulate the moribund cities, but the villas
could profit by the new conditions without any artificial aid. The
stormy times of the third century had taught the Britons how to
^ Rostovtzeff, jFfirf. pp. 419— 21.
286 BRITAIN [chap.
live quietly and comfortably on the land; now that times were
better, the chief difference was that they lived more luxuriously.
This seems to have been the age when villas were largest and most
sumptuous. In some, there are as many as thirty or forty living-
rooms, surrounding an inner courtyard away from the noise and
smell of the farm-buildings; these larger villas are placed with a
keen appreciation of the value of soils, slopes, and exposure to
sun, and planned with a degree of spaciousness and elegance not to
be matched again until the eighteenth century; while their decora-
tion is up to the highest standards of Roman Imperial art. This
prosperous country-house life was much promoted by the estab-
lishment of a sound currency; in many Romano-British villas the
Constantinian coins outnumber all the rest put together. It was
also promoted by the financial policy of the age, which favoured
large estates at the expense of small, and tended to make rich
men richer. But it was not created by these conditions. It was
the farm-system of the pre-Roman Britons, passed through a
triple process of change : first, owing to its adaptability, acquiring
a romanized form; secondly, owing to its solidity, surviving the
economic crisis of the third century; and thirdly, left now alone in
the field, profiting by the new prosperity of the Constantinian age.
The history of the villa-system after the middle of the fourth
century is obscure. In a great many villas, the coins found cease
between 350 and 370. It has been argued that this points to a
widespread destruction of them — ^in fact, the virtual extinction of
the villa-system — in the invasions of which the most severe was
perhaps the barbarian incursions of c. 367. But certain recent
excavations suggest that, had the majority of our villas been more
expertly dug, evidence of a much longer occupation might have
been found; while the autobiography of St Patrick strikingly
shows how such invaders, in a long-continued series of raids, may
avoid killing the goose that lays them the golden eggs. Alter-
native hypotheses are therefore, in the present state of our know-
ledge, worth considering.
Even if the invasions of the late fourth and early fifth centuries
did not destroy the villas, they certainly made the roads unsafe
and so did much to ruin the system of trade which (as we shall see
later) had grown up on the decay of the town markets. The effect
of this would be to intensify the self-supporting character of the
villa, and teach it to do without many things which hitherto
carters and pedlars had brought to its doors. In consequence it
would stand less and less in need of money, and would tend to
revert towards an altogether moneyless economy.
VIII, i] THE LATER PHASE OF THE VILLAS 287
The same Gonsequence would be produced by something for
which we have abundant evidence in Gaul and which can hardly
have been absent from Britain, namely brigandage by revolted
peasants and broken men. These Bagaudae (as they were called in
Gaul) were an inevitable product of fourth-century economic
conditions. Every recruit to their bands meant another man with-
drawn from productive labour and living henceforth by robbery;
and where they were numerous the wealth of the villas, and in
particular their trading capacity, must have suffered proportion-
ally. The cessation of coins in villas can thus be accounted for
without assuming either violent destruction or even disastrous
impoverishment. All that need be assumed is that, owing to
foreign invasion and civil disorder, the villas were being reduced
to the economic status of self-supporting households.
After the decay of the towns, the villas, even including their
entire staff of labourers and their families, can hardly have con-
tained five per cent, of the population, and of the rest the great
majority must have been agricultural peasants. Originally these
may have been to a great extent members of legally and economic-
ally independent village-communities; but the changes of the
Imperial age, especially in its later phases, must have reduced
them to a servile status, dependent on wealthy landowners,
speculative capitalists, or the managers of Imperial domains.
They lived in villages, amorphous clusters of one-roomed huts,
fenced against wild animals; their main occupation was mixed
farming, the cultivation of crops (mostly wheat) in little rect-
angular or irregular fields and the pasturing of livestock in the
open country beyond. Here and there, especially in the well-
known Cranborne Chase villages dug by Pitt-Rivers, they were a
good deal influenced by Roman ways of living; but for the most
part their romanization was hardly above the vanishing-point,
and they lived, so far as material civilization was concerned, much
as their prehistoric ancestors had lived before them. In certain
districts, especially the Fens, there was a great rise of peasant
population during the Roman period, due in this case to large-
scale drainage which can hardly have originated in anything but
capitalistic enterprise. Elsewhere, notably in Wiltshire, whole
villages died out in the fourth or even the late third century, per-
haps through the deliberate transplantation of their inhabitants.
This again may possibly be connected with the growth of the
woollen industry, to which we shall return. Arable land cannot be
turned into sheep-walks without depopulation.
We have seen that the third and fourth centuries were an age of
288 BRITAIN [chap.
individualistic farming, which tended to the creation of larger and
larger estates. We shall see that the same tendency is visible in the
sphere of industry. Under these conditions, the wealthier indi-
viduals reached a high degree of comfort and prosperity. But the
smaller men, and especially the old village-communities, paid the
price for these developments by being reduced to the status of a
proletariate. Not only was their condition unimproved by the
general prosperity, it was depressed by it. The contrast between
rich and poor was not only a contrast in wealth and comfort, it
became increasingly a contrast between security and insecurity. It
was not enough to be poor ; the poor were exploited and oppressed
in a thousand ways, which the Gaulish writers of the late Imperial
age have described in burning phrases. They took their revenge by
revolt and brigandage, and thus joined hands with the barbarians
in overthrowing the civilization that had oppressed them.
The chief conclusion which has emerged from this survey is
that the replacement of the town by the villa as the main vehicle of
romanization really means the replacement of State initiative by
individual initiative in the promotion of civilized and romanized
life. The towns represent romanization as the central government
wished to have it; the villas represent it in the shape in which it
commended itself to the individual British landowner. If we turn
to industry, we shall see a similar change going on.
II. INDUSTRIES AND TRADE
To begin with mining and metallurgy. The gold-mine of
Dolaucothy, the only one of which we know, belongs to the early
part of the Roman period; there is no indication that it continued
to be worked during the later centuries. Perhaps the payable
deposits were by then exhausted. The same cannot be true of the
argentiferous lead-ores in the Mendips and elsewhere; for these
have had a great history since Roman times; but it is a curious
fact that all the lead pigs, which are the chief testimony to the
Roman working of these ores, belong to the first and second
centuries. Did lead-mining cease after that time ?
The mining-settlement at Charterhouse-on-Mendip has yielded
relics of the first and second centuries; in the third, they become
rare. Similarly, the lead-working village at Pentre in Flintshire
seems hardly to have lived beyond the second century. On the
other hand, the Roman objects found in connection with lead-
mines in the Matlock district become commonest in the fourth
century, though there are no pigs of that time. The inference
VIII, Ii] MINING 289
seems to be that after the Antonine period lead-mining went on,
and in some districts with increased intensity t but that in some
way the organization of it was modified. During the early period,
to judge from the pigs, it was a State monopoly, but the Derby-
shire pigs show that in some cases the industry was leased
to conductor es\ zrA it is at least possible that the total lack of pigs
dating from the third and fourth centuries indicates a still further
development by which the mines came into the hands of com-
paratively small lessees, no longer important enough to issue pigs
stamped with their own names, but carrying on the industry,
effectively enough, by independent work at scattered sites all over
the lead-fields. It has been suggested^ that the numerous and
large hoards of late fourth-century silver coin found in and about
the Mendips are a testimony (despite the absence of confirmation
from Charterhouse) to continued prosperity among the lead-
miners of that region down to the last phase of the Roman
occupation, the coin flowing into the mining-district in cash
payment for lead produced there; and this would suit well with the
hypothesis that centralized State exploitation had been super-
seded by a system in which small miners or groups of miners
worked for their own hand.
Iron-mining, too, went on. The slag-heaps of the Weald show
evidence of working throughout the Roman period : in some there
are signs of renewed and intensified activity, perhaps after a gap,
in the third and especially the fourth centuries. In the Forest of
Dean mining went on until early in the fourth century : the one
excavated iron-mine, however, on the hill of Nodens at Lydney
(p. 296), was not worked after the third, and seems to have been
occupied by a very primitive community dealing little in coin and
doing its trade by barter. On the whole, the evidence suggests
that iron-working continued to flourish in one district or another
throughout these later centuries, but was in the hands of in-
dependent miners and metallurgists working for the most part
on a small scale and in somewhat primitive conditions.
The case of tin is peculiar. Early in the Roman period, a few
short-lived and isolated attempts were made by Roman settlers
to exploit the Cornish ores, but this had come to an end before the
middle of the second century. About 2 50, however, the Spanish
tin-mines closed down, and supplies had to be sought elsewhere.
A boom in Cornwall was the almost immediate result. Roads
were built by the emperors of the late third and early fourth
1 By [Sir] Arthur J. Evans, ‘Notes. on the Coinage and Silver Currency
in Britain,’ in Idlum. Chron. ser, iv, xv, 1915, P* 433 ’
BRITAIN
290
[chap.
centuries; Roman coin flowed into Cornwall in large quantities;
and dinner-services of tin and pewter began to be fashionable in
British villas. How was this revived industry organized ? An ingot
of tin from Carnanton was thought by Haverfield to bear the
stamped letters dd nn, which would indicate State property^;
but metallurgical experts who have re-examined it lately are
unable to see the letters, nor are they visible to the present writer
in Haverfieid’s photograph; and unless the reading can be verified
we should be wise to assume that here, too, the ores were worked
by independent miners, operating by themselves or in small
groups, whose sale of their produce (as in the case of the
Mendip hoards) would account for the influx of Roman coin.
Another industry of which something is known during this
period is pottery. In the first and second centuries the pottery of
ordinary domestic use in Britain falls almost without residue into
two classes: the high-class ‘Samian’ ware imported from Gaul,
and the coarse pottery of local manufacture. As long as the
Gaulish factories supplied the luxury demand, little was expected
of the local potters except cheap and serviceable goods; but the
collapse of the ‘Samian’ industry in the third century gave an
opening to any British potter who could put on the market some-
thing rather more ornamental and refined. For the most part, the
local potters failed to take their opportunity; to do so implied
special conditions in the shape of good clay and high technical
skill; but here and there such conditions were present, and in-
dustries grew up capable of supplying the demand for dinner-
table wares. The two best-known examples are those of the Nene
valley and the New Forest^. In the Nene valley, the industry goes
back to the late second century, but its great period is the third and
fourth, and during the greater part of that period its prosperity
was steadily increasing. Excavations at Castor and elsewhere give
us a picture of a society of master-potters, men of some wealth,
living in genteel houses with good tessellated pavements and the
furniture of ordinary well-to-do provincial life, close beside the
kilns which were doubtless worked by hired or servile labour under
the immediate supervision of its employers. The favourite metallic
lustre-ware of the Nene valley works travelled all over the country
and did much to replace the vanished ‘Samian.’
In the New Forest an equal degree of technical success was
accompanied by an altogether different type of organization.
Small independent potters lived a semi-nomadic life in the woods,
1 Prifc. Soc. Ant. xvni, 190O, pp. 117-22, with plate; Eph. Epigr. ix,
1262. See Volume of Plates V, 154, tf.
VIII, II] POTTERY 291
building themselves temporary kilns and sleeping in huts like
those of charcoal-burners; each working for his own hand,
though in a common tradition, and each peddling his own goods
or entrusting them to a middleman hawker. The hard, durable,
well-fired pots from these New Forest kilns, often effectively
decorated with lustrous glaze or painted patterns or stamped
designs^, circulated widely over the southern districts, though
unlike the Nene valley wares they hardly touched the north.
Here, as in the case of mining, we seem to trace in the third and
fourth centuries a widespread and flourishing industry based
entirely on individual enterprise; sometimes developing features
akin to those of a factory-system, but mostly remaining at the
level of artisan production. In mining, this individualistic system
appears to have superseded the earlier system of State exploita-
tion; in pottery, it developed a new degree of technical skill, con-
centrated production, and wide distribution, through the break-
down of the Gaulish factories. In order that such a system should
be possible, communications must have been good and transport
cheap all over the country; for the essence of the system is that
certain districts specialized in the kind of products to which they
were best adapted, and sold them in a market scattered very
widely over the country-side. One result was that the less pro-
gressive local potters in face of this competition were either re-
stricted to the production of very cheap and inferior goods or else
put out of business altogether. By the fourth century, a large and
increasing proportion of the pottery in ordinary use appears to
have been thus made by specialists and distributed over wide areas.
One striking example is provided by the blackish, hand-made,
calcite-gritted ware which was used in enormous quantities at
military sites in the north during the last quarter of the fourth
century. It is in many ways primitive, almost prehistoric, in
technique, though quite good enough for rough domestic service.
The quantities of it that have been found imply a colossal output,
and its uniformity suggests a single place of origin : and in recent
years one place of origin has been identified at Knapton in York-
shire. It looks as if, owing to special conditions of market and
distribution, a local industry preserving certain very ancient
methods of manufacture had suddenly acquired almost a mono-
poly of providing coarse pots to the northern garrison-troops
The textile industry was developing at the same time along
lines to some extent similar. We know of three villas in the south
1 See Volume of Plates V, 154, b. ^ P. Corder and J. L. Kirk,
Roman villa at Langton, near Malton, E. Torkshire, pp. 96-99.
BRITAIN
292
[chap.
of England which, at some date subsequent to their original
building, and therefore probably not earlier than the third century,
have been wholly or partly converted into falling-establishments .
The scale of these establishments is far too large for satisfying the
needs of a single estate, or even of a single small district. The
cloth treated in them must have come from large areas and must
have been widely distributed after treatment ; in fact we have here
archaeological confirmation of the entry about ‘British woollen
cloaks’ in Diocletian’s Edict of Prices, implying that the products
of the British woollen industry were a staple article of trade in the
Empire at large. So far, the industry was presumably run by
private persons ; but the Notitia 'Dignitatum mentions di praepositus
gynaecii Ventensis in Britain, that is, the manager of a State cloth-
mill presumably at Winchester; which indicates that side by side
with the privately-owned industry there was also a State-owned
industry, no doubt making up the wool grown on Imperial
domain-lands.
The history of trade during these centuries is not unlike that of
industry. The early importation of luxury-articles and of things
necessary to a romanized life has dwindled to a mere fraction of
its former self. Glassware and a certain amount of pottery are
coming in from the Rhineland; and a good deal of wine and oil
are perhaps still being imported, although home-grown tallow,
beer and even (after Probus) wine are much used as substitutes.
By the third century, and still more by the fourth, imports would
seem to have become quite inconsiderable. Exports consisted, we
must assume, mainly of raw materials like iron, lead, leather; also,
increasingly, of woollens, and apparently of dogs and perhaps
still slaves and cattle on the hoof. The use of British artisans by
Constantius Chlorus in Gaul does not indicate an economic
demand there for British technical skill, it was doubtless an
ordinary administrative corvee % and Julian’s shipment of British
wheat to devastated areas on the Rhine comes similarly under the
heading not of trade but of forced levies in kind. In short, apart
from a steady trickle of goods across the northern frontier into
Caledonia, we have as little reason to think that Britain now
exported much as to think that she imported much. She was, in
all essentials, self-providing.
Internal trade, however, was very active indeed. The distribu-
tion of Castor or New Forest pottery would by itself be sufficient
proof. Coal, no doubt from the Somerset mines, freely reached
the native villages of Wiltshire, The centralization of such pro-
cesses as fulling proves either that weavers sent their own cloth
VIII, III] TEXTILE INDUSTRY: COMMERCE 293
long distanGes to be fulled or (more likely) that the fullers bought
it up and re-sold it after treatment. All this implies a good and
well-maintained system of communications. Milestones show
that in the third and fourth centuries much care was bestowed on
road-maintenance; and the Fenland waterways carried a heavy
barge-traffic handling pottery from the Nene valley.
But here too there is evidence that the system operating in
the third and fourth centuries differed from that of earlier times.
At first, the chief instrument of internal trade was the town with
its market-place and shops. No doubt, this urban retail trade
required supplements of another kind. We can hardly suppose that
every ‘Samian’ cup in a Wiltshire village was brought there by a
villager who had ridden or driven to the nearest town to get it.
There must have been itinerant salesmen even when the towns
were at the height of their prosperity. But when the towns de-
cayed, from the early third century onwards, the increasing
volume of internal trade must have flowed almost entirely
through channels which left the town on one side. One of these
was doubtless the itinerant hawker, whether a whole-time middle-
man or an artisan peddling his own goods : another was the country
market or fair, of which an example has been identified with much
probability at Woodeaton close to Oxford^. Thus the failure of the
official Roman urbanizing policy, although that policy was con-
ceived partly in the interests of commerce, did not injure Britain
commercially; a spontaneous growth of independent traders,
small and large, arose all over the country, developing with the
development of individualistic manufacture, and satisfied all the
requirements of internal trade so long as the roads were well kept
and safe for peaceful travellers.
III. ART AND RELIGION
Art In Britain, during the later Roman period, presents a very
curious problem. After the first generation or two from the con-
quest, the hope of a flourishing Romano-British style, comparable
with those of regions no farther away than the Moselle valley,
died away and vanished for ever. In sculpture, apart from a few
official monuments probably made by foreign workmen, there is
practically nothing after that date except the most barbarous and
incompetent prentice-work. In metal-work, where the Britons
had once been so successful, the remnants of Celtic taste which
still lend interest to the products of the second century disappear
1 J. G. Milne, ‘Woodeaton Coins ' J.R.S, xxi, 1931, pp. 101-109.
294 ^ BRITAIN ^;chap;
almost entirely, swamped by the mass-production of goods imi-
tating Continental models. In pottery, the Castor factories have
been hailed as repositories of a surviving or reviving Celtic
spirit: but their designs are in no sense properly British; they are
merely an offshoot of the Romano-Celtic Rhineland style. There is
more real spontaneity and charm, less that is merely imitative and
sophisticated, in the New Forest designs, but even here it would be
an exaggeration to speak of a school of Romano-British art. In a
word, the spirit of early British art seems to have been altogether
crushed by the uniform culture of the Western Empire. The
works of art which the standards of that culture demanded, such
as tessellated pavements and painted walls, now'here show any
trace of the ancient Celtic tradition.
None the less, the end of the Roman occupation saw that
tradition re-asserting itself and building up a new school of
design which was to have a glorious future in the early Christian
art of the British Isles. This Celtic revival was not due to the
invasion of Britain proper by Piets and Scots free from the con-
tamination of Roman taste; it originated inside the romanized
area, and first manifested itself in the celticizing of decorative
motives drawn from Roman art. The fact is clear, however we
may try to explain it, that the tradition of pre-Roman art was still
alive, although submerged. And, paradoxical though it may seem,
there is reason to suspect that the vitality of this tradition accounts
for the badness of the art which the Britons produced under
Roman rule. Celtic art had always been abstract, an art of pure
linear pattern; Roman Imperial art was naturalistic, based on
representation of human and other natural forms. The Britons,
unable to combine these opposite tendencies, never so far forgot
their own tradition as to adopt the other with success; when the
reason for trying to adopt it was removed, they went back to their
own traditional style and were henceforth free to go wherever it
led them.
In any attempt to study the religious life of a Roman province,
it is necessary to distinguish between the official cults, to which
everyone was expected to conform, and the spontaneous practices
of the people. Intermediate between these two were cults neither
official nor popular, but sectarian: propagating themselves by
proselytizing, and demanding of their votaries no mere conformity
but a sincere and lively faith.
The official cults, to judge from inscriptions, were kept up
throughout our period by military and other officials with singu-
larly little effect on the general habits of the people: little, indeed.
VIII, in] BRITISH RELIGION 295
even on those of the army itself. In Gaul, a certain absorption of
the Roman pantheon by the natives is attested by modern place-
names. The lack of any such evidence in Britain may no doubt be
due to the replacement of Celtic place-names by Germanic; but
in Gaul the evidence of place-names is supported by that of
epigraphy, and evidence of this kind, though not wholly absent, is
in Britain rare. There are very few cases in Britain where we have
reason to think temples existed to Juppiter or Mars or Minerva or
Apollo, other than those serving official purposes.
The real religion of the British people was a system of local
cults by which the divinities dwelling in certain places were
worshipped at these places themselves. Originally such a place
was not a built temple, it was (to quote an inscription from Bath)
a locus religtosus\ and offerings made there were not of such a kind
as to preserve for posterity the name of the god inhabiting it. But,
as time went on, a few of these cults acquired in externals a
certain degree of romanization. During the third and fourth
centuries there arose at many sacred places in the south and south-
east of Britain temples of the kind known as Romano-Celtic: a
small square building surrounded with a portico and having
annexed to it a house for the priest or hermit who tended it. In the
north they do not occur ; but we find a parallel phenomenon,
small rudely-made altars after the Roman fashion, dedicated to
this or that local Celtic god: the distribution of the altars enables
us to guess the neighbourhood in which the god’s home lay, and
we can thus locate a dozen or more cults. Sometimes the wor-
shippers who dedicated these altars went a step further, and identi-
fied the god with some member of the Roman pantheon. But this
can hardly be called romanization in religion; it was a give-and-
take process by which local Celtic worships increased their
celebrity and their following among soldiers and officials, accept-
ing in return certain outward features of Roman religious
practice. Side by side with these local cults there was a system of
rites and festivals based upon the calendar; but for these our
evidence is mostly indirect, gleaned partly from the later institu-
tions of the un-romanized Celtic fringe, and partly from their
survivals in English folk-lore. Of a Celtic pantheon or group of
gods worshipped semper, ubique, ab omnibus, Britain yields no trace.
What uniformity these cults possessed was due, not to the existence
of dominating figures like the Juppiter Optimus Maximus of Rome,
but to family likeness among the cults and festivals themselves.
The sectarian religions of Mithras, Sarapis, Isis, Cybele and the
rest can be traced as passing fashions affecting the military and
296 BRITAIN [chap. VIII, m
cosmopolitan elements in the population. Mithraism, the most
important of them, became popular among the frontier garrisons
in the third century. To suppose that it ever influenced the civil
population, or became part of the general religious tradition of the
country, is quite unwarranted by what we know of it. (See further
below, p. 428.)
From the historian’s point of view the appearance of these
sectarian cults is interesting chiefly as a praeparatio evangelica.
Like them, and in competition with them, Christianity began as an
Eastern sectarian cult. Statements of Tertullian^ and Origen^
imply that it was making headway in Britain in the first half of the
third century, and there is no reason to doubt them. At the
beginning of the fourth, we have the names of three Britons
(Alban of Verulam and Aaron and Julius of Caerleon) who
suff^ered in the Diocletianic persecution, and of three British
bishops who attended the Council of Arles in 314, By the time
Christianity ceased to be a sect and became the official cult of the
Empire, there was thus an organized system of Christian com-
munities in Britain, having in many towns little churches like that
which has been excavated at.Silchester. It was still the religion of
a minority, and a poor minority at that. Even late in the fourth
century, the forces of wealth and social rank were still on the side
of paganism, and were producing such things as the splendid
temple of Nodens on the hill-top of Lydney. The ultimate
triumph of Christianity owed nothing to the secular arm; it was
achieved after Britain had parted from the Empire, and was the
work of churchmen and missionaries, recapturing for Christ what
Caesar had already lost.
^ ath}. yudaeos, J.
^ in Lucam hom. 6.
CHAPTER IX
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
I. AURELIAN ‘RESTITUTOR ORBIS’
W HEN plague laid low the conqueror of the Goths at
Sirmium in the January of a.d. 270,^ his task was still far
from ended and the choice of a successor was of vital importance.
QuintilluSj own brother of Claudius, was the nominee of the
Senate, supported no doubt by that part of the army that was
with him at Aquileia. But neither legitimacy of succession nor
integrity of character could long sustain his position. After a
reign of a very few months, of which we know as good as nothing,
he succumbed to the man of destiny, Aurelian, who had only to
show himself at army-headquarters at Sirmium to secure the
voice of the troops. At the death of Claudius he had been engaged
in the operations against the Goths, and this preoccupation gave
Quintillus time to issue coins in all the imperial mints except
Antioch, which, under orders from Zenobia, suspended issue. The
news of Aurelian’s elevation was the death-warrant of Quintillus,
whether or no the sentence was carried out by his own hand.
The new Emperor was of humble birth, perhaps a native of
Sirmium, a tough soldier of the new school, trained in the camp
and imbued with its ideals. His nickname, ‘Hand on hilt’
(‘Manu ad ferrum’), gives a vivid idea of the impression that he
made on his contemporaries. A man of great strength of body
and mind, a fine soldier and disciplinarian, he was as deficient in
Note. The main literary sources for this chapter are : the Lives of the
several Emperors in the Historia Augusta, Aurelius Victor, Caesares, the
Epitome de Caesaribus, Eutropius, Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum,
the Panegyrists, Zonaras and Zosimus. Among the fragments some of
Dexippus and Petrus Patricias are important. For the evidence of coins,
which is especially important in view of the defects of the literary tradition,
see in particular, Mattingly and Sydenham, Roman Imperial Coinage
(M.-S.), vol. V, parts i and ii (by P. H. Webb) and Volume of Plates v,
238, 240, 242. The most important inscriptions are cited in the notes.
1 Claudius died in January, a.d. 270, and Quintillus reigned for some
three months, up to about April 270. Cf. Zosimus, i, 47 (oXiyov; re
Eeaxravrov /aijms). Are the seventeen days, given by some historians, a
confusion with seventy-seven days (Chronographer of a.d. 354 ) • The coins,
which are not uncommon, suggest that th^ reign lasted months rather than
weeks.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
tact and flexibility as lie was firm in courage and purpose. The
long account of his early career in the Augustan History makes
heavy demands on our credulity,^ but certainly by the end of the
reign of Gallienus he was a leading figure among the Illyrian
officers and took a prominent part in the plot against Gallienus
and the subsequent execution of Aureolus. Appointed master
of the horse by Claudius, he distinguished himself in the great
Gothic war and, whether or not marked out by him for the
succession,^ had, as we have seen, no difficulty in securing it
after his death. The task awaiting him was one to tax even his
powers. The restoration of the Empire, begun by Claudius, w'as
as yet far from complete. The Gallic Empire in the West, the
Palmyrenes in the East still marred the imperial unity, if the
Danube front was assured, Italy was still exposed to invasion
from north and north-east. Behind the problems of military-
recovery lay those of political and economic life. The govern-
ment of the provinces, the relation of Emperor and Senate, the
ruined coinage— all these demanded attention, as soon as a
breathing-space could be obtained from war. The Empire was
in a state of transition. The old Empire of the princeps and Senate,
of Rome and Italy as queens of the provinces, was dead or dying;
a new society, with new social and new religious ideals, was being
born. If Aurelian was only partially successful, the wonder
remains that in so few years, with such limited natural gifts, he
could accomplish so much.
For the moment it seemed doubtful whether the new emperor
was to be allowed to approach his major tasks. The Juthungi
(Scythians) had invaded Italy through Raetia, and Aurelian
had to march direct from Sirmium against them. He caught them
on their retreat and defeated them as they crossed the Danube.
They then sent envoys to minimize this reverse and to demand
the customary subsidies. Dexippus -well describes their reception
in state by Aurelian, in the presence of statues of the deified
emperors and of the insignia of the Roman army, and the resolute
answer given to their elaborate and sophisticated pleadings. In
the end, it seems, they were glad to return home without further
^ S.H.A. Aurel. 3 sqq. The passage is in the author’s most suspect vein,
tendencious and thickly sown with forged documents, e.g., those relating to
the supposed adoption of Aurelian by Ulpius Crinitus and his nomination to
the consulship. It is of small value for history.
^ Coins of Aurelian sho-wing him tr. pot. vii. cos. 11 (M.-S. v, i,
p. 285, no. 186) apparently belong to a.d. 274, as in 275 Aurelian was
cos. III. The high tribunician count looks like a continuation of the count
of Claudius II.
IX, I] THE FIRST TASKS OF AURELIAN 299
loss. It appears that Aurelian now visited Rome and received
the recognition of the Senate, but that almost immediately after-
wards an, invasion of Vandals called army and emperor to Pan-
nonia. Over this enemy Aurelian gained no uncertain victory^
An embassy was heard by Aurelian and peace was granted by
the will of the army; but, to secure supplies and safe return, the
Vandals bound themselves to give 2000 cavalry to the Roman
service. A body of 500 that broke faith was summarily de-
stroyed^. Meanwhile the Juthungi (‘Marcomanni’), uncon-
vinced by Aurelian’s arguments or arms, again invaded Italy,
and, this time, the danger was acute. Aurelian, coming on them
near Placentia, dared to propose their capitulation, but was
caught in an ambush and so heavily defeated that his cause
seemed almost hopeless. The barbarians, however, scattered to
plunder, while Aurelian put the cities of Northern Italy in a state
of defence and concentrated his forces. Three striking victories —
on the Metaurus, at Fanum Fortunae and near Ticinum — com-
pleted their discomfiture, and all that was left of the great host
wandered home. The favour of the gods, sought by the consulta-
tion of the Sibylline books, had again saved Rome^. Aurelian
was to have time to show his true worth.
The Senate had looked on without enthusiasm at the first
labours of an emperor who was not of its own choice. Some
of its members had even ventured to conspire against him.
Now it could only accept him for better or worse: thanks-
givings were decreed for his victories, and none dared
question the stern revenge which he took on his enemies.
1 Dexippus, frag. 6 (Jacoby, F,GM, ii, pp. 456 sqq,) is the main authority.
See also Zosimus i, 48-9; Petrus Patricias, frag. 12 (F.H.G, iv, p. i88)j
S.H.A, JureL 18 sqq.\ Orosius vii, 23, 4. The narrative in the text gives
what appears to the present writer to suit the sources best, but it is possible
to maintain that Aurelian was engaged with the Juthungi once only in this
year, viz. in the campaign of North Italy (see above, p. 152).
2 Petrus Patricius frag. 12 (F.H.G. iv, p. 188). According to Zosimus i,
48 the result of this battle was doubtful.
^ S.H.A. AureL 18 sqq. has much to tell of the campaign; he calls the
invaders Marcomanni. Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxv, i sqq.^ places the
campaign after that against the ‘Persians.’ According to Anon. Dionis
Continuator, frag. 10, 3 (F.H.G. iv, p. 197), the barbarians had taken
Placentia. [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxv, says that Aurelian tnius proelns
victor fuit, apud Placentiam, iuxta amnem Metaurum ac fanum Fortunae,
postremo Ticinensibus campis. Placentia, however, was a defeat; iuxta amnem
Metaurum ac fanum Fortunae, perhaps, represents two actions. For the
defence of Pisaurum c£ Dessau 583, —
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
300
[chap.
The one challenge to his authority came from a different
quarter. The mint-officials, who had ‘debased the coinage,’
’'ose in revolt under Felicissimus, the master of the mint. If
*he story of the 7000 soldiers^ lost in the bitter fighting on the
Caelian Mount is even remotely true, we must suppose that
the grievances of the moneyers were shared by many outside
their ranks and that Aurelian had to deal with something like
a civil war^. The mint of Rome was reduced in size and,
perhaps, for a short time even closed, while something was
done to improve the faulty coinage, though it hardly merits
as yet the name of a reform. One step now taken by Aurelian
gave evidence of his sound judgment and care for the State. To
guard Rome against any repetition of such a threat as the in-
vasion of the Juthungi, he surrounded the capital with new walls.
The work, undertaken in consultation with the Senate and with
the assistance of guilds of City workmen, was begun in 271 but
only ended under Probus. The new walls were not elaborate
fortifications designed to stand a long siege, but a barely adequate
defence against sudden barbarian attack. The total length was
twelve miles, the normal height twenty feet, the width twelve.
There were eighteen gates, single or double, frequent sally-ports
and towers for artillery. The walls in general followed the old
Customs boundary. The plan of the work shows clearly that it
was built by civilian labour : the hands of the soldiers were needed
for other tasks®. Meanwhile the authority of Aurelian was
challenged abroad. Septimius in Dalmatia, Urbanus and Domi-
tianus in places unknown, revolted, but were speedily crushed^.
1 ^hellatores^ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxv, 6.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxv, 6, speaks of monetae opifices who auctore
Felictssimo rationali nummariam notam corrosisseni. Eutropius ix, 14,
monetarii rehellavervnt vitiatis pecimus et Felictssimo rationali interfecto,
might seem to make Felicissimus their victim. But was his real meaning
that Felicissimus was executed because of the debasement and that the
monetarii then revolted to save their own skins? S.H.A, Aurel. 38 de-
velops the tradition of Victor in rhetorical style, embellished with a forged
letter of Aurelian to Ulpius Crinitus. The offence of the moneyers was
certainly debasement of the coinage, not uttering coins with treasonable
legends (as suggested in Rev. Ntm. 1891, pp. 105 sqq). The nummariam
notam cm-rodere of Victor suggests a clipping of the edge of the struck flan.
Malalas xn, p. 301 (Bonn) records a revolt of moneyers at Antioch — perhaps
only a false version of this.
3 All necessary information will be found in I. A. Richmond’s The City-
W all of Imperial Rome.
* Zosimus I, 495 he mves ’Ewm/iiio? for ‘Septimius’ (Septiminus;
codd. [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxv, 3). A coin of a Domitianus, in the style
IX, I] AURELIAN AND ROME 301
On the Danube frontiers an important change was made during
this year. Aurelian withdrew Roman troops and civilians from
Dacia, ‘desperans earn posse retineri,’ and formed a new pro-
vince of Dacia, on the right bank of the Danube, comprising parts
of Moesia, Dardania and Thrace and with its capital at Serdica.
Allusions to ‘Dacia Felix’ on coins of Milan and the coinage of a
new mint at Serdica itself prove the date a.d. 271 to be pre-
ferable to 275^ (see above, p. 152).
Aurelian was now free to turn his attention to the major
problems of imperial restoration. The Gallic Empire, under
Tetricus I, was pacific and threatened no immediate danger:
it was essentially Roman and its interests in the main were those
of Rome. But the Palmyrenes, even if nominally loyal subjects,
were in fact a foreign people, threatening, under diplomatic
forms, to undermine all Roman authority in the East. The con-
cordat between Zenobia and Claudius had broken down even
before his death (see however, p. 179). The Palmyrenes had gained
a hold on Egypt, even if not full control of Alexandria, and
Zenobia was pushing her occupation of Asia as far north as the
Hellespont. The coins that appear in the first year of Aurelian
both at Antioch and Alexandria, with head of Aurelian on one
side balanced by head of Vaballathus on the other, have been
claimed as evidence of the recognition of the Palmyrene prince by
Rome. The titles ‘vir clarissimus rex imperator dux Romanorum’
define the place of Vaballathus under the new concordat^. When
we reflect, however, that this ‘Concordia’ coinage leads on
directly to independent issues of Vaballathus and Zenobia, that
the mint-mark below the head of Aurelian marks his as the reverse
(secondary) side of the Antioch coins, and that there are no certain
allusions to Vaballathus on the coins of any of Aurelian’s own
mints, we are led to a different view. The concordat represents
either a one-sided offer on the part of Palmyra alone, or, at most,
of the Gallic Empire, was found in France in the Department of Loire-
Inferieure {Rev. Num. 1901, pp. 319 sqq.-, 1930, pp. 7 sqq). Perhaps he
revolted in the south of Gaul, where Aurelian held sway.
^ S.H.A. Aurel. 39,7; Malalasxn,p. 301 (Bonn); Eutropiusix, 15. The
date 275 is proposed by L. Homo, Essai sur le regne de I' Empereur Aurelien,
pp. 3 1 3 sqq. The historians do not give a precise date, but the coins should be
decisive. It is conceivable that abandonment took place in stages, some pre-
paratory withdrawals by Gallienus, the main evacuation in 271, its com-
pletion in 274.
2 Coins of Antioch (M.-S. v, i, p. 308, no. 381) and Volume of Plates v,
238, h. Cf. Homo, op. cit. pp. 66 sqq.
302 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
a grudging concession by Aurelian, like the brief toleration ex-
tended later as a temporary necessity by Diocletian and Maxi-
mian to the British Empire of Carausius (p. 3 3 1). No sooner was
Aurelian free in Italy than he produced his own solution of the
Palmyrene problem.
In the summer of a.d. 271 Aurelian marched by land through
the Balkans, collecting his forces as he went and stopping for a
moment to destroy a Gothic raider, Cannabas (Cannabaudes),
and 5000 men on the far side of the Danube^. The outlying
provinces added by Zenobia to her Empire were soon recovered.
Egypt, too, returned to her allegiance, whether coerced by a separate
expedition or not. The joint coinage of Aurelian and Vaballathus
at Alexandria was struck in two years, 269— 70, 270— i ; early in
271— after March nth — -followed the independent coinage of
Vaballathus and Zenobia, but, before the end of August, the
mint was again striking for Aurelian alone. As Aurelian ad-
vanced, the Palmyrenes withdrew from the Hellespont. He
moved from Byzantium to Ancyra and found none to challenge
him till Tyana closed her gates against him. A short siege was
ended by the treachery of a native, Heraclammon, and Aurelian,
moved even more by motives of State than by a vision of the seer,
Apollonius, spared the city®. The serious fighting was still to
come.
Zenobia is one of the most romantic figures of history. As
consort of Odenathus and then as regent for her little son,
Vaballathus, she showed the spirit and courage of a man in the
great crisis of her country's destiny. She had a taste for Greek
culture, drew such a famous rhetorician as Longinus to her court,
and sought to win the favour of the Greek element among her
subjects. To Egypt she was attached not only by political and
commercial connections, but also by a deep knowledge of Egyptian
letters and a special devotion to Cleopatra, whom she set before
her as an example. Through her patronage of Paul of Samosata,
who contended with Domnus for the possession of the see of
Antioch, she could bid for the support of the Christian population.
Now, as Aurelian approached, the fear of his wrath and the ex-
ample of his mercy at Tyana drew the Greeks from her cause.
^ S.H.A. Aurel. 22, 2. It has been conjectured that this Cannabas was
the same as the Kniva of the Gothic list of kings (P.W. s.v. Domitius (36),
col. 1378). For Aurelian as Gothicus Maximus (tr.p. iu-a.d. 271--2)
cf. Dessau 8925.
^ S.H.A. Aurel. 24, 2—9, where much is made of the apparition of the
pagan saint.
IX, i] AURELIAN AND THE EAST 303
The oracles of Seleuceia and Aphaca returned discouraging
answers to her inquiries. The priests were probably good judges
of politics, and condemned Zenobia for her rashness in challenging
rather than conciliating her great antagonist^.
Egypt had surrendered without a blow, and it was at Antioch
in Syria that Zabdas, Palmyra’s best general, had concentrated
his forces. Now, as Aurelian approached, he marched out north-
wards to meet him on the banks of the Orontes. Aurelian brought
with him troops from Raetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia and
Moesia, with barbarian auxiliaries, while local levies, including
‘ clubmen ’ from Palestine, joined him later. Zabdas had the re-
mains at least of two Roman legions among his infantry, but
rested his hopes even more on the Palmyrene archers and the
heavy cavalry, the clibanarii — mounted on huge horses, in armour
that covered man and beast. Aurelian himself was a professional
commander of cavalry and disposed of an excellent corps of
Moorish and Dalmatian light horse. At his express orders, these
gave way before the first onslaught of the mailed knights. Only
when these were exhausted by their exertions did they turn back
on them and discomfit them. The decision thus won, Aurelian
sent his infantry across the Orontes on the left flank of the enemy
and completed the rout. Zabdas retired to Antioch, parading a
false Aurelian as his captive, evacuated the city without further
disaster and left a small garrison in a strong post at Daphne^.
Aurelian was welcomed by the Antiochenes and requited their
surrender with mercy. He confirmed the claims of Domnus as
against those of Paul, on the ground that it was he who was
endorsed by the bishops of Rome and Italy, and thus won the
goodwill of a part at least of the Christian community (see
p. 49 1). Aurelian then stormed the post at Daphne, and followed
Zabdas, by way of Apamea, Larisa and Arethusa, to Emesa,
whither Zabdas had withdrawn, instead of by the direct route
to Emesa, in order to gain time for Persian assistance to arrive.
The Emperor was now joined by troops from Mesopotamia,
Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine and in the plain before Emesa
repeated his victory of the Orontes over a force estimated at
^ Zosimus I, 57
^ Zosimus r, 50 Iqq. is our main authority — an excellent one — for the
war. He gives three main battles: (i) on the Orontes, (2) capture of the
post, at Daphne, (3) Emesa. S.H.A. Jurel. 25, 2-3, gives only the last
decisive battle. Eutropius ix, 13 writes. ZsKsfoWw. . .baud longe ab Antiochia
sine gravi proelio cepit. Jordanes, Romana, 290 sq. M., puts the main battle at
Hymmae near Antioch.
304 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
70,000 men, using similar tactics, but incurring even greater risks
than before from the Palmyrene clibanarii. Palestinian ‘clubmen’
played an important part in the victory, beating down the riders
whose armour they could not pierce. While the issue still hung
in the balance, Aurelian, we hear, was conscious of a divine helper
in his army, whom he afterwards recognized as the Sun-God,
Elagabalus, of Emesa^.
Zenobia’s wider ambitions had sustained a decisive check,
but she could still claim that ‘almost all the fallen were Romans’^
and might even hope to tire out her conqueror, till he should be
recalled by troubles on the Danube and North Italian front. She
withdrew 80 miles to Palmyra and prepared for a siege. An
expeditionary force from Egypt may now have joined Aurelian,
while Persian assistance may have attempted to reach Zenobia®.
Aurelian, in his pursuit, was harried by the nomads of the desert,
and was himself wounded in the fighting round the walls of
Palmyra. For a moment he hesitated and offered moderate terms
of surrender which Zenobia was unwise enough to decline in
undiplomatic language. He now bent his will to the task. The
desert tribes were beaten or bribed into submission; Aurelian
seems to have entrusted them with the profitable task of furnishing
his army with supplies. The Persian relief force did not appear —
perhaps it was actually defeated by the Romans. Zenobia herself
escaped on a dromedary to seek the hoped-for help, but was over-
taken by Roman cavalry at the Euphrates and brought back
captive. The peace party in Palmyra gained the upper hand and
opened the gates of the city. Its imperial power was, of course, at
an end, but it was spared from pillage and had only to receive
a garrison of 600 archers under Sandarion. An able officer,
Marcellinus, was left in general control as prefect of Mesopo-
tamia and governor ‘totius Orientis.’
Aurelian, now adding the title of ‘Parthicus Maximus’ to
those of ‘Germanicus’ and ‘Gothicus Maximus’ that he already
bore, moved to Emesa and there held a trial of Zenobia and her
counsellors. The Queen, humbled at last, condescended to save
1 This story, occurring only in S.H.A. Aurel. 25, 4—6, should be treated
with due reserve.
® Anon. Dionis Continuator, frag. 10, 5 (F.M.G. iv, p. 197).
® S.H.A. AureL 27, 4 makes Zenobia boast in a letter to Aurelian nobis
Persarton auxilia non desunt, again, ib. 28, 2, Aurelian auxilia quae a Persis
missa fuerunt intercepit. According to Zosimus (i, 55) Zenobia fled to secure
the Persian help. The title Parthicus Maximus, borne by Aurelian (tr.p.
iii—C.LL. VIII, 9040) suggests actual fighting with Persians. The titles
Palmyrenicus (Dessau 579) and Arabicus {ib. 576) were perhaps unoflicial.
IX. i] THE FALL OF PALMYRA 305
herself by casting the blame on her advisers, and the noble
Longinus met his death with a courage that shamed his mistress.
With a long train of captives, Aurelian retraced his steps to the
Propontis, but, in the crossing, lost most of the Palmyrenes, but
not their queen, by accidental drowning^. By the autumn of 272
Aurelian had moved north to the Danube to repulse an invasion of
the Carpi and gain the new title of ‘ Carpicus Maximus.’ It was
there that ill news from Palmyra reached him. The city had risen
under a certain Apsaeus and set up a king Antiochus, who claimed
kinship with Zenobia, after an attempt to induce Marcellinus to
betray his master had failed. Sandarion and his archers were
massacred. Aurelian from the first had relied on speed of move-
ment, and this resource did not fail him now. He marched post
haste to the rebel city and struck down resistance before it had
had time to take root. Judgment this time was stern and final.
Antiochus was spared, more in contempt than mercy, but Palmyra
was pillaged, its treasures carried off, its walls dismantled, and it was
left to relapse into a little desert village.^ It had flashed like a meteor
across the political firmament and like a meteor it passed into night.
Egypt, meanwhile, had felt the impulse of the revolt. A certain
Firmus, a man of great wealth and wide commercial connections,
whose personality seems to have made a great impression on his
age, established himself for a moment less as emperor than as
governor in another’s interest — perhaps for Marcellinus, should
he desert Aurelian, or, failing him, for Antiochus. His aim
certainly was ‘to defend what was left of the cause of Zenobia.’
The troublesome tribe of the Blemmyes lent some support to his
revolt. Aurelian moved at once against this new enemy, besieged
him at Bruchium and forced him to commit suicide®. The first
part of Aurelian ’s programme was at last complete. The ‘restitutor
Ori ends’ could now think of completing his claim to be ‘restitutor
orbis,’ by bringing the West back to its allegiance.
Little is recorded of the Gallic empire from the death of
PostumusinA.D. 268^tothe defeat ofTetricus in 274. There may,
indeed, have been an unwritten compact between the Roman and
Gallic rulers to maintain the status quo while Claudius dealt with
1 According to Zosimus (i, 59) Zenobia died by illness or by voluntary
starvation; this conflicts with the general tradition and should be rejected.
2 S.H.A. Aurel. 31 (he gives Achilleus instead of Antiochus) : Zosimus i,
60 sq.
® S.H.A. Aurel. 32, 2-3; ^ad. tyr. (Firmus etc.) 1-6. Zosimus i,
61 simply records a revolt of Alexandria. Groag (P.W. s.v. Domitius
(36), col. 1390) thinks that his relations with the Blenunyes were confined
to trade. * Or 2695 see above, p. 19 1.
3o6 the imperial recovery [chap.
the Goths. Victorinus, the successor of Postumus, issued, ap-
parently towards the close of his reign, a series of coins com-
memorating legions of the Rhine, Danube, Palestine and Egypt
but not of Italy or Raetia, and these may reflect a definite move
not against Claudius but against his successor Quintillus and an
offer of friendship to Aurelian and the Palmyrenes^. Quintillus’
short reign may well have been taken up with steps to meet the
new menace. The barbarian invasions of Italy by way of Raetia
may even have been instigated by the Gallic emperors. But, even
if this reading of the coins is correct, Victorinus had miscalculated.
Aurelian would hear nothing of a divided Empire, and the death
of Victorinus, which probably followed close on that of Quintillus,
may have been due to something more than private vengeance.
Of the mysterious Victoria or Vitruvia, mother of Victorinus
and maker of the new emperor, Tetricus, sober history has
hardly a word to say^. Tetricus, formerly governor of Aquitania,
was a mild and pacific ruler who was content to hold his Empire
in quiet, while Aurelian safeguarded Italy and recovered the
East. He had a son of the same name, who was first Caesar and
then, for a very short period, Augustus. It was his fate to see
Gaul harried by barbarian invaders by land and sea, and to suffer
much from the insubordination of his troops and the machinations
of one of his governors, Faustinus. Only the coins, with their
references to the ‘Pax’ and other virtues of the Emperor, suggest
that his reign had a more satisfactory content than this. Judging
the future of the Gallic Empire to be desperate, he appealed to
Aurelian to resume control — ‘Eripe me his, invicte, malis.’
Aurelian was not slow to respond. Early, it would seem, in
A.D. 274, he marched into Gaul, encountered Tetricus in the
‘campi Catalaunii’ near Chalons, and, when Tetricus came over
during the battle, broke the gallant but hopeless resistance of the
Gallic army^. Gaul returned to her allegiance and the mint of
Lugdunum celebrated the ‘Pacator Orbis’ and his mercy to his
^ Cf, H. Mattingly in Trans, of Numismatic Congress, 1936, pp. 214 sqq.
For other views see C. Oman, Num. Chron. 1924, p. 59; A. Blanchet,
Musie Beige, xxvn, 1923, pp. 169-171, and above, p. 214, n. 4.
2 For Victoria, S.H.A. Tyr. Trig. 31 ; Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxiii, 14.
® Aurejius Victor, Caes. xxxv; Epit. xxxv, Zosimus r, 61 ; Eutropius ix,
13; Orosius vn, 23, 5; S.H.A. Aurel. 32. The date is probably early
274 rather than late 273. The vota coins of Tetricus I and II probably
imply that Tetricus at least began a fifth year of rule; the celebration of vota
quinquennalia could regularly begin with the end of this fourth year of a
reign. This would take us into 274* Lor the titles of Tetricus I as known
from coins (a.d. 270-274) see M.-S. V, ii, pp. 399 sqq.
IX, i] THE FALL OF THE GALLIC EMPIRE 307
defeated rivals, while some provision was made for the future
government of the province as well as of Britain. Britain, from
its position, seems bound to have followed in the main the fortunes
of Gaul, but the fact that coins of Claudius II and Quintillus
reached the island without delay, suggests that it may, to some
extent, have pursued a course of its own^.
Aurelian could now return to Rome to celebrate a magnificent
triumph as ‘restorer of East and West.’ While the crowds ap-
plauded the procession, in which Zenobia walked in golden
chains, the senators groaned to see their fellow-senators, Tetricus
and his son, submitted to the same indignity. Aurelian, however,
was magnanimous in his victory. He settled Zenobia at Tibur
and gave her in marriage to a senator — a strange end to a strange
career — and ‘promoted’ Tetricus to be ‘corrector Lucaniae^.’
For the rest of the year 274 Aurelian could devote his energies to
internal reform. The coinage had sunk into the deepest degrada-
tion, and the first reform of 271 had hardly gone below the surface.
Aurelian now called in the old money and issued new.® The new
billon piece, superior in appearance, but little better in its metal
than the old, received a definite value — xx or xx. i — perhaps
2 sestertii of 10 ‘libellae’ each. There was a subsidiary coinage
of bronze, no longer bearing the mark of the senate, S.C., but
issues of gold were relatively scanty and of pure silver there was
none at all. The reform, therefore, was from the first imperfect.
The new billon did indeed receive a fixed value and was more
securely based on the old unit of reckoning, the sestertius, than
on the ruined denarius. But what guarantee was given, that the
new coinage had a solid backing and that the old evil of the issue
of masses of almost worthless billon would not again bring chaos
into commercial life }
In other ways Aurelian showed his regard for the material
well-being of his subjects. He punished with exemplary severity
informers and peculators and burned the bonds of masses of old
debts in the Forum of Trajan. He controlled the price of bread
in Rome and, for the old distribution of corn, he substituted a
^ British hoards occasionally show Quintillus without Tetricus I; cf.
the Selsey Hoard, Num. Chron. 1933, pp. 223 sqq.
2 S.H.A. Jurel. 33; [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxvj Eutropius ix, 13.
® Zosimus I, 61. Cf. Num. Chron. 1927, pp. 219 sqq.-, a different view
in M.-S. V, i, pp. 10 sqq. The sestertius, in the coinage of the Empire, con-
tained four asses-, its division into ten libellae belongs to accountancy (cf.
Volusius Maecianus, Distrihutio, 65 sqql). The theory of the reform here
adopted is not yet to be regarded as in any way certain; it seems to meet the
known facts more nearly than any other.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
[chap.
dole of two pounds of baked bread, adding one ounce to the ration
from a special tax on Egypt. He made also free distributions of
pork, oil and salt, and is even credited with a scheme for dis-
tributing free wine as well, and with planning extensive plantations
in the east and north-east of Italy to supply it^. On three occasions
he gave largess, to the value of 500 denarii in all The clearing of
the bed and the repair of the banks of the Tiber and the building
of new barracks— perhaps for the ‘collegia suariorum’ — in the
‘ Campus Agrippae,’ all attest the same range of interests. Two
lasting effects of these policies were the extension of the powers
of the ‘praefectus annonae,’ and possibly the establishment on a
public footing of such guilds as the butchers and bakers of Rome
and the ‘navicularii’ of the Nile and Tiber®.
It is definitely stated that Aurelian consulted the Senate about
the building of the walls of Rome (p. 300). But the senators,
excluded from the camps by Gallienus, were losing their grip of
public life, while, in the provinces, knights were replacing them
not only in the command of the army, but also in the civil govern-
ment, Perhaps Aurelian, busied as he was with wars, simply
allowed these tendencies to follow their natural course. Of the
defence of the frontiers again only too little is known. Though
Probus was left in Gaul in a.d. 274, the Alemanni again appear
in the a^i decumates in the following year. The ‘limes Raeticus’
was apparently restored and Vindelicia, as we hear vaguely, was
freed from ‘obsidio barbarica.’ On the Danube old Dacia had
been abandoned as a dangerous liability and the legions, XIII
Gemina and V Macedonica, went to their new stations at Ratiaria
and Oescus. As late as 274 Aurelian had to drive back bar-
barians from the Danube. To the East two new legions, I Illyri-
corum and IV Martia, were sent, the one to Syria Phoenice, the other
to Arabia, to strengthen the Roman grip on lands where the old
corps had suffered heavily under the Palmyrene rule and the war
of recovery^ Egypt continued restless to the end of the reign
and in 27 5 Probus was dispatched to deal with a new incursion
of the Blemmyes.
1 As the story of free wine occurs only in S.H.A. Aurel. 48, we should
probably regard it as an interpretation of Aurelian’s actual encouragement of
viticulture. 2 S.H.A. Aurel. 48; Chronographer of a.d. 354.
® This is only a reasonable guess; cf. J. P. Waltzing, £tude historique sur
les corporations. . n, pp, 268 sqq.i Groag in P.W. s.v. Domitius (36),
col. 1410.
* E. Ritterling, ‘Zum romischen Heerwesen des ausgehenden dritten
Jahrhunderts,’ in Hirschfelds Festschrift, Berlin, 1903, pp. 345 sqq.
IX, I] DOMESTIC AND FRONTIER POLICY 309
Of the dangers arising from the arrogance and insubordination
of the armies Aurelian seems to have been fully conscious, and it
may well be that he anticipated Diocletian in the attempt to
remove them. It is said that Aurelian began to introduce the
Eastern forms of royalty and roundly told his troops that it was
not they, but the god who assigned the imperial power. Herein
may be seen one of the springs of that religious policy which
Aurelian followed throughout his reign and crowned in 274 by
the erection in Rome of a magnificent temple to the Sun-God and
the establishment of a new college of senators as ■pontifices dei
Solis'^. Sol ‘dominus imperii Romani’ was to be the centre of
revived and unified paganism and the guarantor of loyalty to the
Emperor, whose companion and preserver he was. So far as he
can be identified with any one figure of worship, the Sol of
Aurelian was the Elagabalus of Emesa, who had helped him in
his decisive battle and now returned, after the tragic fiasco of the
Emperor Elagabalus, to enjoy the reverence of Rome. But it
was clearly the intention of Aurelian to make the most of the
breadth and inclusiveness of his worship, in which Greek and
Roman worshippers of Apollo might unite with Eastern devotees
of Mithras or Elagabalus, while, on the other hand, the form of the
cult was Roman. The inauguration of a State cult of the ‘Genius
Populi Romani’ shows the development of religious ideas which
reached their full development under Diocletian. Towards
Christianity Aurelian maintained a negative attitude which was
passing at the time of his death into positive hostility. His whole
experience of life must have inclined him rather to the per-
secuting policy of Decius and Valerian than to the ‘universal
peace’ of Gallienus (p. 194). Persecution of the chief enemies of
paganism might well seem to be the necessary counterpart to the
establishment of the new solar monotheism. But the trial of
strength against the new foe was reserved for a later Emperor:
Aurelian ‘inter initia sui furoris exstinctus est'^.’
Late in 274 Aurelian was called to Lugdunum to suppress
some obscure disorders and turned an invasion of Juthungi and
Alemanni from Raetia. His eyes were however set towards the
East, where the conquest of Mesopotamia was still to be accom-
^ Zosimus I, 61; Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxv, 7; S.H.A. Aurel. 39.
Dessau 1210 is the earliest known inscription of a ‘pontifex dei Solis.’ For
the evidence of the coins, which is important, see M.-S. v, i, pp. 265 sqq.
and especially Volume of Plates, v, 238, c, d.
2 Lactantius, de mart. pers. 6; Constantine, Oratio ad Sanctorum Coetum
24; Zonaras xii, 27 (p. 606).
310 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
plished and at the end of the year he set out on his last journey.
At Caenophrurium, between Perinthus and Byzantium, Aurelian’s
confidential secretary, Eros, incurred the displeasure of his master
by a lie, and, to save his skin, forged a list of prominent soldiers,
who with himself were marked for execution, and showed it to
the supposed victims^. The threatened men knew only too well
the merciless severity of Aurelian and proceeded direct to his
murder, only to find out the deception when it was too late. The
guilty Eros was executed, but his crime could not be undone.
In a fit of penitence and self-distrust, the army refused to appoint
any of Aurelian’s murderers to succeed him and referred the
choice of a new emperor to the Senate. For some six months,
from about April to September 275, embassies passed to and
fro — the army appealing to the Senate to resume its old function,
the Senate shrinking from so perilous a responsibility. At last
in September the aged Tacitus was induced to accept an honour
that was almost a sentence of death. The fact of any interregnum
of more than a few weeks has been disputed by many modern
authorities, but the coinage shows clearly that for some consider-
able period government was carried on in the name of the Empress
Severina for the dead Aurelian, and that the five years and six
months of the reign are reckoned not to the death of Aurelian,
c. April, but to the accession of Tacitus in September^. Coins of
Severina struck in all officinae of several mints, with types of
‘Concordia Augg.’ and ‘Concordia Militum,’ bear witness to the
conditions of the interregnum. It was yet to be seen how this
‘ Concord of the troops ’ would stand the test of time.
The defects of the literary tradition for a remarkable reign are
partly remedied by the evidence of a large and varied coinage®.
Aurelian strikes at the mints of Rome, Milan, Siscia and Cyzicus,
though in 274 Ticinum takes the place of Milan. It is thus
possible to trace the decline of the mint of Rome after the revolt
of the moneyers, the concentration on military interests at Milan
and Siscia, the extensive issues at Cyzicus to meet the needs of
Aurelian’s Eastern campaigns. At Milan the types (r. 271) ‘Dacia
Felix,’ ‘Genius Illurici’ and ‘Pannoniae’ attest the interest in the
^ Zosimus I, 61 sq^-i S.H.A. Aurel. 36 gives the name of the secretary
as Mnesteus (perhaps an error arising out of
2 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvi, i (interregnum of about six months);
S.H.A. Tac. 1—2. The coins are decisive in favour of an interregnum of
some length. The ‘Divus Aurelianus’ of the S.H.A. implies consecration,
but coins are lacking.
® M.-S. V, i, pp. 248 sqq. See also Appendix on Coins.
IX, H] THE DEATH OF AURELIAN 31 1
new order on the Danube. In 271, indeed, Serdica comes into
activity as a mint for the new Dacia and thereafter shows its
devotion to the Emperor and Sol, his divine patron. In the east
new mints were opened at Tripolis in Phoenicia and at an unknown
city with a dolphin as mint-mark. Lugdunum in 274 honours the
restorer of the West, while Antioch strikes first for Vaballathus
and Aurelian, then for Vaballathus alone, and finally for Aurelian
alone, the restorer of the East (p. 302). More than all this, the
coins reveal the emotional background of the reign. After a short
first period in which the tradition of Quintillus prevails, the
dominant notes of Aurelian ’s own coins ring clear in the ‘ Concord
of the Armies,’ ‘the restoration of the world,’ the ‘lordship of
Sol,’ master of the Roman Emperor and protector of his chosen,
the Emperor.
11 . TACITUS AND FLORIAN: SENATORIAL INTERLUDE
The appeal of the army to the Senate to nominate Aurelian ’s
successor might conceivably have led to a serious revival of
senatorial influence. Aurelius Victor asserts that the edict of
Gallienus (p. 197) could have been revoked, and that the senators
could have recovered their place in the camps^. The army, in a
mood of self-restraint and self-denial, would have raised no ob-
jection, had the Senate only acted with sufficient firmness. But
the condition was unfulfilled. Such honours as military command
had to offer were too perilous to tempt men who attached more
and more value to the uninterrupted enjoyment of their hereditary
dignity and wealth. The Augustan History enlarges on the re-
joicings of the Senate, both in private and public, over the
universal right of hearing appeals now granted to the praefectus
urhis and the recovery of the ius proconsulare^ , How much is
really implied in these high claims it is not easy to gauge. The
new emperor himself was a senator, so too, no doubt, was his
half-brother, Florian, whom he made Praetorian Prefect, and his
kinsman, Maximinus, whom he appointed governor of Syria.
But we have no real evidence of any general restoration of
senatorial privilege. To take one small test, the mark of senatorial
control, S.C., does not appear at all on the bronze coinage of
Tacitus and not always on that of Florian.
It was in September 275 that Tacitus at last yielded to pressure
and accepted nomination as Emperor. He was seventy-five years
^ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvn, 6, reading ^amisso,’’
2 S.H.A. Tac. 18-19.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
312
[chap.
of age, a heavy handicap even for a man who was ‘ egregie moratus
et rei publicae gerundae idoneus^.’ He had already been consul
under Aurelian in 273, Of his short reign we know little of any
moment. He asked for divine honours for Aurelian^, punished
some of his murderers, and built a temple of the deified emperors.
He himself held the consulship for the second time in 276;
when he requested the same office for Florian, the Senate refused
his request and he expressed himself delighted with its inde-
pendence. He made over his own ‘patrimonium’ to the State,
but, in the six months of his rule, ‘ congiarium vix dedit’ — what-
ever that may mean. He set a good example in his private life and
attempted sundry reforms which tended to improve morals and
restrict extravagance. The statement that he forbade the debase-
ment of the metals — gold, silver and bronze — perhaps veils a
policy which had real economic importance®. Old as he was,
Tacitus showed himself ready to bear the burdens of his office.
The Maeotidae, the Goths from the northern shores of the Black
Sea, who claimed to have been called in to assist Aurelian in his
campaign against Persia, invaded Asia Minor and penetrated as
far as Cilicia. Tacitus took the field against them and actually
reached Tyana, while Florian gained a victory (‘Victoria Gothica’),
which is commemorated on coins*. But the indulgence of Tacitus
to his kindred, already shown in his favouring of Florian, bore
evil fruit. A kinsman, Maximinus, appointed to the governorship
of Syria, made himself hated by his oppressions and was murdered.
The discontent spread to the entourage of Tacitus. We must
suppose that the army was already repenting of its moderation
and turning its eyes towards Probus, the natural successor of
Aurelian, who held a high command in Syria and Egypt. The
strain was too much for the aged Emperor, who collapsed and
died at Tyana, c. April 276®.
Florian, without waiting for the approval of the Senate,
snatched the Empire as his natural inheritance®, and was generally
^ Eutropius IX, 16; Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvi, i; Epit. xxxvi.
® According to S.H.A. Jurel. 41, 13 he did this before he was emperor,
on the first news of Aurelian’s death.
® We depend mainly on S.H.A. Tac. 9 iqq.-, we have no serious means of
checking the statements of the Vita.
* Cf. S.H.A. Tac. 13; Zonaras xii, 28 (p. 608); Zosimus i, 63.
® That he died of disease seems to be better attested than that he was
killed by his troops.
® Aurelius Victor {flaes. xxxvi, 2) makes Florian seize Empire nullo
senatus seu militum consulto. S.H.A. Tac. 14, i, says that he seized Empire
IX, III] TACITUS AND FLORIAN 313
recognized, except in Syria and Egypt, which now came out
openly in defence of their own candidate. Probus. The usurpation
of Elorian was necessary if he was to have any chance of holding
power, and would no doubt have been condoned had it been
successful. He led his army to Tarsus, in the hope that the
numbers and quality of his troops would be decisive. But Probus
cleverly delayed the decision, and the soldiers of Florian, suffering
severely from an uncongenial climate, began to waver in their
loyalty. After a bare three months of rule, during most of which
Probus had contested his claim, he died at Tarsus, betrayed by
his own men (f. end of June, 276)^
The coinage of these two short reigns, which seemed little
more than an interregnum between Aurelian and Probus, has
a life and colour of its own^. The Golden Age, always hoped for
and never realized, is characterized in new terms. The Sun-God
is less prominent than under Aurelian, though he still appears as
the director of the loyal troops in their allegiance. The stress falls
more on the old divine protectors of Rome, and particularly on
‘Roma Aeterna’ herself. ‘ dementia Temporum,’ a watchword of
the two reigns, perhaps alludes directly to the influence of the
‘ clemency ’ of the Senate. The coinage of Florian, with its emphasis
on ‘Perpetuitas,’ ‘Securitas’ and ‘Victoria Perpetua,’ betrays some
anxiety about the durability of the ‘gentle times.’ Of neither
emperor can we form any very clear conception. Whatever their
personalities and policies, they were not given opportunity to
translate them into lasting fact.
III. PROBUS: ‘PACATOR ORBIS’
With the accession of Probus the Senate sank into the back-
ground and the balance of power shifted again to the camps.
However loyally Probus might seek the approval of the Senate
and deplore the precipitancy of Florian, which had driven him to
seek a decision by force, it was on the consent of the armies that
his rule actually rested. A native of Sirmium, trained like
Claudius II and Aurelian in the school of war, he is said to have
been foremost in the service of Aurelian against Palmyra and
Tetricus, and had, according to one account, been appointed by
quasi hereditarium, although Tacitus had promised that the ‘best man’
should succeed him.
1 For the war with Probus cf. [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxvi; Zosimus i,
64 (the best account). 2 M.-S. v, i, pp. 319 sqq.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
3H
[chap.
Tacitus to be ‘dux totius Orientis^.’ Aurelian had restored the
Roman Empire. Probus conceived it to be his task to complete
the restoration by re-establishing order throughout the provinces,
and, at the same time, by bringing the troops back to a proper
discipline and love of hard work. In this task he was brilliantly
successful and deserves a large measure of the praise which our
authorities lavish on him. Almost the equal of Aurelian in
military capacity, his superior in balance and moderation of
character, he holds an honourable place among those who paved
the way for the great re-organization of the State by Diocletian.
A settlement with Persia was still to be made, but for the
moment no danger threatened from that quarter, while the
presence of the Emperor was urgently demanded in the Western
provinces of the Empire, After executing vengeance on such
as still survived of the murderers of Aurelian, Probus moved
northward and then westward, perhaps defeating the Goths in
Illyricum on the way^, and paid a short visit to Rome to receive
the approval of the Senate. He then led his army into Gaul.
Hordes of Germans — Franks in the north, Longiones (Lugii)
and Alemanni in the south — had burst over the Rhine frontier and
penetrated into the whole of Gaul. The story of the invasion in its
detail is entirely lost. There may not have been one sudden in-
cursion so much as a gradual worsening of an evil, which had
begun soon after the strong hand of Postumus was removed and
now only reached its crisis. The burial of hoards of coins of
Gallienus, Claudius II and the Gallic emperors, which are
commonly attributed to the German terror, may perhaps repre-
sent rather the ineffectual protest of the provincials against the
unpopular reform of Aurelian. Such hoards occur too freely in
Britain to be attributed to a cause that operated only in Gaul, and
the fact that the Gallic coins of Aurelian’s reform do not bear his
mark of value, xx. i, suggests that the reform was not as fully
carried through in that province as it was in the rest of the Empire^.
^ The ducatus totius Orientis only in S.H.A. Prob. 7, 4; whether or not
Probus fought against Tetricus I, we hear of him in Gaul just after the war.
All the exploits attributed to Probus before he became emperor are suspect,
since it has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the victory over
the Marmaridae in Africa (S.H.A. Prob. 9, i) belongs to the other Probus,
Tenagino Probus, who died in Egypt in battle against the Palmyrenes under
Claudius II; see A. Stein in Klio, xxix, 1936, pp. 237 sqq.
® Cf. C.I.L. XI, 1178; Probus is already Gothicus in 277.
® The mark of value, xx. i., probably implied as a corollary the surrender-
value of the old coinage (p. ii). Its absence perhaps means that the old
coinage was allowed to find its value in terms of the new.
IX, m] PACIFICATION 315
In the course of little more than a year’s hard fighting, Probus
completed the deliverance of Gaul. He himself took the field
against the Longiones and captured Semnon, their chief, and
then, when his lieutenants had defeated the Franks on the
lower Rhine, he joined them in a victorious attack on the Bur-
gundians and Vandals. Sixty famous cities of Gaul were freed
from the barbarian, tens of thousands of Germans were killed,
forts were established across the Rhine ‘in solo barbarico,’ and
Probus could even play with the idea of establishing a new province
of Germany. Nine chiefs knelt for mercy at his feet, hostages were
demanded and 16,000 Germans were distributed in small bodies
over the Roman army^. The Germans had to supply corn and
cattle and submit to disarmament; it was for the Roman Empire
that they were now to till their soil, to Roman arms that they were
to look for protection and the decision of their internal quarrels^.
Gne body of prisoners was sent to Britain, where they were later
to render valuable service to their captor (p. 316 sq.).
Early in 278 Probus could regard the Gallic danger as ended
and turn his attention to other problems®. He pacified Raetia,
and repulsed an invasion of Vandals from Illyricum^. A rebellion
in the East was already over before Probus himself could arrive
to suppress it. A certain Julius Saturninus, an able soldier, who
is said to have held high command under Aurelian and to have
enjoyed the full confidence of Probus himself, was forced by his
troops in Syria to assume the purple, and, after a brief usurpation,
perished at Apamea®. Troubles in the south of Asia Minor now
claimed the attention of Probus. Lydius (or Palfuerius .^), a
brigand of daring and capacity worthy of a better cause, seized
1 Zosimus I, 67 sq.', S.H.A. Prob. 13 sq.‘, in a letter to the Senate
Probus {ib. 1 5, 3) speaks of septuaginta urbes nobtlissimae captivitate hostium
vindicatae (for the number, 'as against the sixty given elsewhere, cf. Julian,
Conv. [Caes-I 314, a-b, possibly significant for the date of the biography);
Orosius VII, 24; Zonaras xii, 29 (p. 609). ® S.H.A. Prob. 14.
® The order of events is far from certain; fighting was perhaps going on
at the same time in Gaul, Raetia and Illyricum.
* Zosimus I, 68, 2; woTa^oO Aiyvo<; has been thought to indicate
Augsburg on the Lech as the scene of the battle.
® S.H.A. ^uad. tyr. (Firmus etc). 7 sqq. says that Aurelian had given him
limitis orientaiis ducatum and describes his visit to Egypt; Jordanes, Romana,
293 M, says that he was magister militum, sent to restore Antioch, and that
he rebelled there. Zonaras xii, 29 (p. 609) calls him a Moor; Zosimus i,
66 agrees and says that he was governor of Syria. Two gold coins of
Saturninus, apparently of the mint of Antioch, are known: cf. Babelon,
Melanges, . 3, pp. ibj sqq. and Bull, de Num. 1895, p. 107.
3i6 the imperial recovery [chap.
Cremna and held it till Ws death in a long and desperate siegeL
The unruly Isaurians were kept in check by fortresses, and were
perhaps recruited into the new legions, I to III Isaura^. Ptolemais
revolted in alliance with the Blemmyes and attacked Coptos;
but the revolt was suppressed without the personal intervention of
Probus®. Against Persia the Emperor made no move as yet,
but he haughtily declined presents from the Persian king (Vahram
II) and may perhaps have granted a truce on terms favourable
to Rome. In the course of 279—80 Probus returned homewards,
by way of Illyricum, and, as he passed through Thrace, settled
100,000 Bastarnae within the Empire^, a policy convenient for
the moment but fraught with peril for the future.
The closing years of the reign were marred by military in-
surrections which perhaps testify to deeper discontents and more
serious ills than the disordered ambitions of a few generals and
the dislike of the troops for too firm a discipline. Proculus, a
native of Albingaunum (Albenga), south-west of Genoa, a hardy
but licentious soldier, was spurred on by his virago wife, Samso,
to assume the purple. Lugdunum, moved by unknown grievances,
abetted his revolt but was powerless to sustain him. The Franks,
to whom he tried to flee, with their native perfidy betrayed him to
Probus®. More serious was the revolt of Bonosus, the commander
of the Roman fleet at Colonia Agrippina. Married, it is said, to a
Gothic wife, he was in close touch with the barbarians and used
his unrivalled powers of drinking to extract secrets from his boon-
companions. He was born in Spain of a Gallic mother, but
traced his descent from Britain. Now, having by his carelessness
allowed the Germans to burn some ships of his fleet, he took
refuge in revolt, but, after serious fighting, he despaired of success
and hanged himself®. The whole West seems to have been in a
state of unrest. The deletion of the name of Probus on an in-
scription of Valentia’ suggests some trouble in Spain, while in
^ S.H.A. Prob. 1 6, 4; 2 ^simus I, 69 ry.
2 E. Ritterling in P.W. j.w. Legio, col. 1348.
® Zosimus I, 71; S.H.A. PrsA 17, 4-6.
* Zosimus I, 71, I; S.H.A. Prob. 18, i.
® Despite the evidence of our authorities, the rebellion of Proculus seems
to have been distinct from that of Bonosus and not to have begun at Cologne.
[Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxvii, 2 puts the rising of both Proculus and
Bonosus at Cologne, and he is supported by Eutropius ix, 17, Orosius vii,
24, 3 and S.H.A. Prob. 18, 55 S.H.A. tyr. {Firmus etc.) 13, i says
‘‘hortantibus Lugdmensibus...in imperium vockatus est'
® S.H.A. ^ad. tyr. {Firmus etc.) sq. ^ Dessau 597.
IX, ni] REVOLTS UNDER PROBUS 3 1 7
Britain a governor who threatened rebellion was forestalled by
the mission of Victorinus, a Moor, the very man who had re-
commended him to Probus. By the help of the German captives
who had been sent to the island he nipped the revolt in the bud^.
In default of precise evidence, it may be suspected that economic
causes were at the root of these troubles. Goins of the reform of
Aurelian are definitely rare in British deposits and, when Carausius
seized the island in 286, he began by overstriking coins of the
Gallic emperors. This seems to suggest a disinclination on the part
of the province to accept the new coinage, with all that it implied®.
Reaching Rome at the turn of the years 2 81—2, Probus cele-
brated a magnificent triumph, which made a vast impression as
much by the ingenuity of its display, as by the variety of conquered
enemies that it paraded for the delight of the mob of Rome.
Peace seemed now to be assured within the empire, and Probus
could at last turn his attention to the war against Persia. But he
had erred in judgment, if not in intention, in his treatment of the
troops. Not only had he made heavy demands on their services
in war, but he had not even allowed them to relax in the intervals
of peace. Everywhere they were set to useful work, and, in the
West particularly, where Probus wished to encourage the culture
of the vine, they had been employed on clearing the ground for
new vineyards. Even worse than this, perhaps, Probus had
pacified the empire and, in his delight at the success achieved, had
spoken too optimistically of a time when an army would no longer
be required®. Such remarks could very easily be misunderstood.
All these discontents grew to a head and culminated in one final
revolt that proved fatal to the Emperor. He had gone forward to
Sirmium to superintend the recovery for cultivation of the ‘ Mons
Alma,’ when his own soldiers suddenly turned against him and
killed him in the ‘iron tower,’ to which he had fled for refuge.
The movement was not so local as some authorities incline to
represent it. Carus, Prefect of the Guard, who had been left to
muster the troops in Raetia, was pressed by his men to revolt.
Like Decius with Philip he seems to have tried to keep faith with
Probus. But the troops sent by Probus against him deserted, and
1 Zosimus I, 66; cf. Zonaras xii, 29 (p. 609), which explains the account
of Zosimus.
^ Cf. the great Blackmoor hoard (Nam. Chron. 1877, pp. go
apparently buried after the rout of Allectus, but still consisting mainly of
coins of the Gallic Empire.
® S.H.A. Proh. 20, 3 {brevi milites necessarios non futuroi)-, ib. 22, 4 and
23,, expands the theme in rhetorical vein.
^ [CHAP.
Cams was then forced to assume the purple. The death of ProbuS
removed the occasion of a civil war. Our tradition, out of kindness
to the memory of both men, tries to veil the tragedy, but there can
hardly be a doubt that the ‘Concordia Militum’ had once more
failed in the moment of crisis^. Senate and People mourned their
loss and awarded to Probus the posthumous honour of conse-
cration^; but the decision of the troops could not now be questioned
and Cams was accepted as the new ruler of the Roman world.
Of few reigns of such note as that of Probus have we so slight
and unsatisfactory a record. A little longer than that of Aurelian
and almost as notable, it can be told to-day in half the space. The
eulogies lavished on Probus are poor compensation for the lack
of detailed account of his administration. To the Senate Probus
from the first showed all possible respect. He sought its approval
for his elevation, and, if his biographer is correct, allowed it to
hear appeals from the more important provincial governors, to
appoint proconsuls, to assign legates from among the consulars,
to bestow the ius praetorium on equestrian governors and to set
the seal of its own decrees on the laws which he himself proposed®.
It seems probable that the Historia Augusta preserves, with a false
show of precision, some memory of an actual attempt by Probus
to obtain assistance from the Senate in governing. It is likely
enough that Probus was sincere in his wish to strengthen the
civil government and that he conceived of himself, as Aemilian
had done before him, as general of the State, not as the autocrat,
free to deal at will with all problems of administration. But as
, regards the final issue, the judgment of Aurelius Victor stated in
a highly significant passage of his De Caesaribus is certainly
correct^. The Senate, partly by its own fault, failed to regain its
place in the camps and the ‘militaris potentia convaluit.’ The
senators, over-fond of luxury and security, ‘ munivere militaribus
et paene barbaris viam in se ac posteros dominandi.’ Helpers in
his labours Probus must have had, but they will have been soldiers
and knights rather than senators.
The four rebellions that marred the reign are certain evidence
^ S.H.A. Prob. 21 , Jordanes, Romana, 293 m, [Aurelius Victor], Eptt.
xxxvn, 4 and Eutropius ix, 1 7 simply record his death in a mutiny. The true
account is given in Zonaras xn, 29 (p. 610); S.H.A. Carus, 6, i knows it,
but rejects it.
^ Probus is not ‘divus’ in the Historia Augusta and has no ‘consecration’
coinage. But cf. ‘sub divo Probo,’ Pan, vni (v), 18, 3 and C.I.L. i®, p. 255.
® S.H.A. Prob. 13, I ; these rights are said to have been given by Probus
in his secunda oratio to the Senate. * Caes. xxxvn, 5 sqq.
IX, in] THE RULE OF PROBUS 319
of something rotten in the state of the army. Probus may have
been unwise to re-impose discipline too suddenly and unre-
mittingly on troops that had half forgotten how to obey; it is
possible that he was not quite fortunate in the choice of his
assistants. In the main, however, the difficulties lay beyond his
control and were only capable of solution by the drastic reforms
imposed later by Diocletian. The Emperor’s policy of settling
barbarians in the Empire had its dangers as well as its advantages,
as was instanced by the exploit of Franks, thus settled, who broke
loose and after plundering Greece, Sicily and Africa, finally made
their way safely home^. A gladiatorial revolt of some magnitude
also disturbed the peace of the reign.
The coinage offers some compensation for the defects of the
literary tradition^. The market continued to be flooded with the
base billon of the reform, still marked xx, xx.i, and the vast
issues were used to present to the public a wealth of reverse types
and an unprecedented richness of variety in the presentation of
the Emperor himself. ‘Virtus Probi Aug.’ is freely used as a sort
of alternative to the normal title. Dated coins are rare, but
establish one detail of interest — that Probus could reckon his tri-
bunician power ‘a die in diem,’ from the date of its first con-
ferment, and not renew it on December loth®. Lugdunum
strikes in great abundance, celebrating the divine powers
Hercules, Mars, Sol, Victoria and Virtus, that bless the Emperor’s
labours, and the new Golden Age of peace, assured by his triumphs
in the field. The gods come more and more to be viewed as the
divine ‘protectors’ or ‘companions’ of the Emperor — a heavenly
‘comitatus’ analogous to the earthly. The mint of Rome con-
centrates attention on the personality and achievement of Probus,
the universal victor crowning the ‘restoration of the world’ that
had been won by Aurelian. The symbolism of the Golden Age
is employed with even more than the customary fervour. The
Empire has recovered faith in its destiny, in its emperor and his
divine helpers. The loyalty of the army is, as ever, a keystone of
the Imperial system ; but the insistence on it suggests an ardent
hope rather than a settled confidence. Sol still enjoys a large
measure of the honour to which he had been advanced by Aurelian
and still directs the loyalty of the troops, but he has already lost
his primacy in the Pantheon. The mint at Ticinum, as usual,
has much to say of the loyal and harmonious army and strikes the
type of ‘Princeps luventutis,’ which seems to emphasize the
1 Zosimus r, 71. ^ M.-S. v, ii, pp. i Volume of Plates v, 238, i-k. ..
® A. Alfoldi, Blatt.fur Miinzfreunde, 1923J PP* 35^ . j,
320 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
relation of the Emperor to the Imperial cavalry. In loyalty to the
Emperor, a native of Sirmium, the mint-city of Siscia, throned
between her two streams, boasts herself as ‘Siscia Probi Aug.’
Hercules, who laboured in the service of Juppiter for the good
of the human race, supplies a series of symbols fit to represent the
work of the new Hercules, the Emperor: an old theme of the
Imperial coinage, brought to the fore by Postumus in Gaul, is
now taken up by the Imperial mints and prepares the way for the
Herculian dynasty of Maximian. Types of imperial virtues, such
as Abundantia, Felicitas and Ubertas, probably reflect the policy
of land-reclamation and planting of vineyards. Serdica dis-
tinguishes itself, as under Aurelian, by a certain exuberance of
feeling acclaiming the ‘Invictus,’ the ‘Bonus,’ the ‘Perpetuus
imperator Probus.’ Probus, like Aurelian, is even hailed as
‘Deus et Dominus.’ In religious fervour and devotion to the
person of the Emperor this mint stands out above all the rest.
Late in the reign its stalf was transferred to Siscia, not to Rome
by Carus, as was once supposed^. At Cyzicus the themes of
loyalty and discipline in the army are very fully handled^. Antioch
and Tripolis have a much narrower range than the other Imperial
mints, and concentrate on a few main themes — the Victory of
the Emperor, the Sun-God his preserver, the restoration of the
world and the ‘ Clemency of the Times.’ There is clear reflection
of a difference in temper in the public that used the coins. Other
provinces claim from the coinage a detailed comment on each
single aspect of the Emperor’s activities, the East is content to
contemplate him under a few aspects that know no change.
The coinage proves beyond doubt that the panegyrics of the
historians have their foundations in fact. The personality of the
Emperor stands out as the vital factor in the recovery of Rome®.
The moods of depression and uncertain hope are over. As the
forces inimical to the Empire ebb, the forces of recovery flow in an
ever increasing tide. Greater triumphs are still in store, if the
soldiers can but be taught to use their swords only in their country’s
service, if their ‘Concord’ and ‘Fidelity’ can be so assured, that
they will not need to be invoked unceasingly on the coinage.
1 See Blatt. fur Miinzfreunde, 1923, p. 313 sq. against M.-S. v, ii,
pp. 123 sqq.
2 Whether its issues are limited to two occasions, one in a.d. 276, one in
A.r». 278—9, is hardly certain as yet.
® For the tradition concerning the character of Probus, cf. Zonaras xii,
29 (p. 609): i^tXeiTO Se irapa iravrcov 0 Tlp6^o<; wpaot; xal evp.eurjt;
KoX ^iXoBcopo^. : ^
321
IX. IV] THE COINAGE OF PROBUS
IV. CARUS AND HIS SONS: ‘PRAESIDIA REIPUBLICAE’
The new emperor was emphatically a creation of the army, nor
did he deny the source of his power. In reporting to the Senate his
elevation by the troops, he was nominally asking for its approval,
but in reality presenting it with an accomplished fact. There are
so many accounts of his birthplace that we might suspect it to
be entirely unknown, but it is probable that he was a native of
Narona in Illyricum^. Like most of his immediate predecessors,
he was a soldier by education and trade. His conduct of th^e
Persian War, which seemed to him the main object of his reign®,
proves that he was no mean general. Apart from that, we have no
material forjudging his character as emperor, beyond the general
opinion of our authorities that he stood ‘medius,’ be^een good
and bad emperors. One great natural advantage, denied to most
of the emperors just before him, he certainly enjoyed; he had two
sons of full age, capable of receiving at once the rank of Caesar
and ofsharing in some measure in the burden of Empire. Carinus,
the elder, was left as virtual governor in the West and was sent
in the first place to defend Gaul. Supreme power brought out
all the baseness and meanness of his character, but it is hardly
probable that Carus really thought of substituting his younger son
Numerian or Constantius Chlorus for Carinus or even of putting
the latter to death®. Numerian had an excellent reputation as a
poet, an orator and a man of the best intentions. Whether he
was in any way fitted to rule the State must remain uncertain.
It was early in the autumn of 2 8 2 that Probus had met his death.
Preparations for the Persian war were at once pushed forward,
but some delay was caused by an incursion of Quadi and Sarmatae
across the Danube. Carus at once showed his professional ability
by defeating the invaders with heavy loss in killed and captured
and thought fit to advertise this initial success by some notable
coin-types^. It was early in 283 that Carus inarched east to take
the field against Persia, but of the details of his journey we know
nothing. Persia had declined while Rome had recovered and
Vahram II, who now sat on the throne, was no Shapur. Carus
crossed the Euphrates, defeated Vahram, took Seleuceia and was
^ The question is in itself of no great moment, but it illustrates most
aptly the uncertainties of ourtradition; seePros, Imp^ 299, no, 1475 -
2 Cf. Anon. Dion. Continuator frag. 12 iv, p. 198). Carus
declared that iirl KaicS liepcrcjv eh ^aatXeiav rjKOev*
3 S.H.A, Carus, 7/3 and 17, 6.
^ For the coins cf. G. Elmer, Der Mmzensammler, I 935 > PP* ^ ^
322 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
accepted throughout Mesopotamia. He then crossed the Tigris
and crowned his triumph by taking the capital, Ctesiphon, and
thus fairly earning the title of ‘Parthicus Maximus^.’ It is note-
worthy that Rome still applied the old name to the new enemy,
even as she continued to call the Goths Germans. The Persians
were distracted by factions, and Cams, urged on, it may be, by
the perfidious advice of Aper, his Praetorian Prefect, who nursed
his own secret ambitions, refused to rest on his laurels and tried to
pass the bounds set by fate for Roman conquest eastward. Near
Ctesiphon he met his death under circumstances that arouse
grave suspicion— according to the official version, by a stroke of
lightning, more probably by the treachery of Aper^. Cams has no
Alexandrian coins of the year 2 8 3—4, and his death must, therefore,
fall at about the end of July 283. He had reigned a little over
ten months.
The two Caesars, sons and natural heirs of Carus, succeeded
unopposed, the one in the East, the other in the West. The Persian
war was brought to an end, possibly after a minor reverse®;
Mesopotamia, at least, remained under Roman rule. Numerian,
who appears to have been entirely under the influence of his
father-in-law, Aper, had no thought but to bring his army safely
home. On the journey, he began to suffer from an inflammation
of the eyes, which gave an excuse for conveying him in a closed
litter. When the army had reached the neighbourhood of Nico-
media, the stench of corruption from the litter betrayed to the
troops the fact that their young Emperor was dead^. Aper had
no doubt hoped that the death would be attributed to natural
causes and that he would succeed to the vacant throne. But the
officers of the Eastern army had other views. On Carinus they
based no hopes — now, if not earlier, his true character as an
emperor was fully realized. But they had a rival claimant to Aper
in their own midst in the person of Diodes, commander of the
protectores domestici, A council of the army appointed him its
emperor to avenge the death of Numerian, and his first act was
to brand Aper as the murderer and strike him down with his
own hand — ‘Gloriare, Aper, Aeneae magni dextra cadis®.’
^ Zonaras xn, 30 (p. 6io)j Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxviii; Epit. xxxviii;
Eutropius IX, 18; S.H.A. Carus, 8, i.
^ His death was attributed to fulminis ictus-, to disease S.H.A. Carus, 8,
2; 8, 7. ® Zonaras XII, 30 (p. 61 1).
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvxa, b-, Epit. xxxviii; Eutropius ix, 18;
S.H.A. Carus, 1 2, 2; Jordanes, Romana, 205 M ; Zonarasxii, 30 (p. 6 1 1 so.).
6 S.H.A. Carus, 13, 3.
IX, iv] 323
Diodes had many years before received an oracle from a Druidess
in Gaul that he would be emperor, ‘when he had killed his boar.’
Superstitious as he certainly was, he may have brooded long over
the oracle and come to the conclusion that the ‘fatalis aper’ was
none other than the Praetorian Prefect. In striking him down he
fulfilled the omen of his rule^. The date will be late in the autumn
of 284— probably November 17.
Garinus in the West had ruled with little opposition from home
or abroad, but had alienated men’s sympathies by his cruelty and
lust®. The magnificent shows with which he delighted the mob
of Rome were a poor substitute for sound government®. The new
threat to his position roused him to a display of unexpected energy
and resource. Even before the elevation of Diodes, Julianus
‘corrector Venetiae’ had revolted and extended his power as far
as Siscia. His coins of that mint promise ‘Libertas Publica,’
constitutional government in place of the tyranny of Garinus,
and acclaim the ‘Happiness of the Age,’ ‘the Victory of the
Augustus,’ ‘Juppiter the Preserver,’ and ‘the Pannoniae of Au-
gustus.’ He fell without any serious struggle in the fields of
Verona and left the stage clear for the clash of two mightier
rivals*. Diodes marched west and encountered Garinus in the
valley of the Margus. The decisive battle was fiercely contested
and the advantage rested with the troops of Garinus, but the
Emperor was killed in the hour of victory by an officer whose
wife he had seduced, and Diodes was accepted by the leaderless
army®. The war had been difficult and laborious, and Diodes was
politic enough to avert further bloodshed by a generous pardon
of the hostile faction (spring 285). The dynasty of Garus, surely
founded as it seemed on his two sons, had passed away, and the
fate of the Empire was in the hands of an almost unknown
officer. But the Roman destiny was making no mistake. The man
had at last been found with the right qualities of mind and
character to set the seal of completion on the great task of restora-
1 Ih. 14, 3.
^ S.H.A. Cams, i 6 sqq.-, Epit. xxxvni, 7; Eutropiusix, 19, i; Eunapius,
frag. 4 (F.H.G. iv, p. 14). No doubt the Act that Garinus was the rival of
Diocletian caused his memory to be treated with scant respect.
® S.H.A. Cams, 19.
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, lo; Julianus revolted Cars nwrte cognita-,
Epit. xxxvni. For his coins cf. M.-S. v, ii, pp. 579, 593 sq.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, il, at Marcus in Moesia; Epit. xxxvni,
no site given; S.H.A. Cams, 18, 2, ‘^apud Marcum' (read Margum, so
Hohl after Casaubon); Jordanes, Romana, M, 'apud Margum'
324 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
tion for which Claudius, Aurelian and Probus had spent their
last breath.
The coins of the dynasty of Cams’- hold out to the world a new
vision of the Golden Age, blessed in the plenty and security of its
peace and safeguarded by the valour and victory of the emperor,
and the loyalty of his troops. Lugdunum, Rome, Siscia and
Cyzicus, each presents its own picture of the promise of the
reign. The mint of Serdica, which had already been closed
towards the end of the reign of Probus, strikes no coins. Antioch
and Tripolis celebrate the new dynasty with a narrow range of
types. The coinage of Carinus andNumerianasAugusti — Carinus
seems to have borne the title a little before his father’s death —
continues to celebrate the same themes, with increasing stress on
the winning of universal peace by the victories in Persia and on the
eternity of Rome assured by the dynasty. The last phase of Carinus,
when threatened by the elevation of Diodes, is marked by an in-
sistence on the 'Loyalty of the Troops’ and the 'Peace of the
Army.’ An ‘adventus’ type at Ticinum may mark a stage of his
advance to take the field against his rival®. Perhaps the most marked
feature of the whole coinage is the stress laid on the security of the
house of Carus, with his two young sons, the hope of the State and
the princvpes iuventutis. Diodes, as he pondered the problems of
imperial government, will not have failed to contrast the strength
of Carus, with his two heirs, with the loneliness of Claudius,
Aurelian and Probus, and, when the time came, found means to
provide himself with a like protection.
V. DIOCLETIAN; ‘PARENS AUREI SAECULI’
The new emperor Diocletian, as he now chose to call himself,
was a Dalmatian by birth, of humble parentage. A persistent
tradition makes him originally the son of a ‘scribe’ or a freedman
of a senator named Anullinus®. He had risen like most emperors
of the age through service in the army, and had served, we are
told, in minor posts in Gaul under Aurelian and as governor in
Moesia under Carus, before he was called to the command of the
Emperor’s bodyguard. He had also held the office of consul.
His service had hardly trained him in the arts of generalship and
his military talents when tested proved to be respectable rather
than brilliant. But he had a sound knowledge of the requirements
of the army and a good eye for the larger aspects of strategy.
’ M.-S. v, ii, pp. 122 sqq. ® Ib. v, ii, p. 175, no. 294.
® Zonaras xii, 31 (p. 613); Eutropius ix, 19.
DIOCLETIAN
IX, V]
3^5
Perhaps his training, as contrasted with that of an Aurelian or a
Probus, had helped to develop in him that subtlety, which, as
Tacitus has reminded us, is often lacking in the born soldier^.
Yet if he ranks in history as statesman more than general, this is
due rather to his eminence in the former capacity than to his
weakness in the latter.
To his contemporaries he was an object of intense admiration,
tinged with a certain uneasiness and distrust. It was certainly
by divine favour that he had been elected by the army. He was
a notable personality, wise and subtle, but, withal, a man who
would satisfy his own severity, while leaving its cost in un-
popularity to be paid by his assistants^. A judgment in the
Historia Augusta strikes a truer note than is usual in that
work: ‘consilii semper alti, nonnumquam tamen (ferreae) frontis,
prudentia et nimia pervicacia motus inquieti pectoris compri-
mentis.®’ Though he decked himself with kingly display and
hung about his person a religious awe and sanctity, his busy
brain was ever scheming for the welfare of his Empire, and the
lord and master conducted himself as a father of his people^.
During the long years through which he had been waiting for
the ‘fateful boar’ (p. 323), he had clearly pondered the problems
of his age and had reached certain conclusions, which, as emperor,
he was quick to put to the proof. The Empire was too heavy a
burden for any one man to bear. Diocletian therefore took care
to provide himself with helpers, and nothing showed his genius
better than his power to choose them well. The men of his choice
accepted his moral ascendency and did his work. Again, the
emperor was continually exposed to the jealousy of his generals.
Diocletian made his helpers actual partners in the imperial power
and, by multiplying the imperial persons, left no prospect of final
success to any local rebellion. The Empire had been passing by a
slow transition from the old Augustan order into something of a
very diiferent character. Diocletian saw that the time had now
come to abandon the old and to accept the new with all that it
might imply.
This principle extends over the entire life of the State and
conditions the whole of Diocletian’s work. The Empire was too
large for one emperor to administer: there must, then, be several
rulers, each with his own administrative staff. The provinces had
been unwieldy and, at times, dangerous in the hands of ambitious
1 Tacitus, Agric. 9.
® S.H.A. Carus, 13, I.
® Eutropius IX, 26.
* Aurelius Victor, Cues, xxxix, 8.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap;^
governors. They must be divided into smaller units. The civil
and military commands had begun to be separated, and knights
had been replacing senators in camp and court alike. In both
these cases, the new idea must be allowed free development. In
all but a few provinces equestrian ‘dux’ and ‘praeses,’ now
entirely distinct in function, replace ‘ proconsul’ or ‘ legatus.’ The
frontier armies had given way repeatedly under the great bar-
barian invasions, and the emperors had been compelled to scrape
together a field-army, with cavalry as an important and inde-
pendent arm. This essential force must be strengthened and made
permanent. The ‘loyal and harmonious’ troops had come to be a
menace to peaceful society. They must be brought back to the
old Roman discipline. Emperor after emperor had fallen by the
swords of his ‘ commilitones.’ His person must be withdrawn
from all vulgar contacts, and surrounded with the outward
prestige of kingship and the mystical sanctity of religion. The
basis of authority in the State had come to be questioned. The
Senate had outlived its ancient dignity and worth, but the Imperial
office had not been strong enough to dispense with its moral
support. For the Empire, at large, then, not for the army only,
the Imperial office must be reinterpreted and re-established as
the centre of the national life. Neglect of the gods had brought
down their displeasure, attested by many a national disaster.
Rome must return to that reverence for the divine which had
made her great. The meaning of the name ‘Rome’ was no longer
centred in the capital or even in Italy. The provinces, then, and
the great provincial capitals must receive equal recognition.
Economic life and the State ‘annona’ had been subject to serious
disturbances. In both spheres, order and balance must be re-
stored. Taxation, based on an obsolescent system, had ceased to
yield the necessary quota. A new basis for a sufficient revenue
must be discovered. The old system of one imperial mint, with
occasional auxiliaries in the provinces, and a multitude of local
mints for token-money, was already almost superseded. The
change must be completed and the needs of the Empire must be
met uniformly by local mints, all striking the same Imperial
coinage. The detail of all that makes up the new constitution of
Diocletian is reserved for special treatment elsewhere (chap, xi),
but without some mention of it here the external history of the
reign could not be understood.
The prospects of the reign might at first seem favourable, if
Diocletian could quickly heal the wounds of civil war. What
he could do, he did — as it seems with good effect. He showed
IX, v] THE TASKS OF DIOCLETIAN 327
mercy to the friends and adherents of Carinus and actually con-
tinued in office his Praetorian Prefect, Aristobulus^. After some
fighting on the Moesian and Pannonian front, which earned him
the title of ‘ Germanicus Maximus,’ he may have visited Rome as
some think in the summer of 285® and received the recognition
of the Senate. But the apparent calm of the Empire was not yet
to be trusted, and Gaul at once offered an ugly problem in the
revolt of the Bagaudae, bands of peasants, who, driven from their
homes by the double terror of barbarian and tax-collector, had
set up two emperors of their own, Aelian and Amandus. Here
was the first opportunity for Diocletian to test his new plan. He
had at his side Maximian, an old comrade in arms, brave and
vigorous in action, lacking in originality but entirely loyal. He
now gave him the commission to pacify Gaul. Maximian more
than fulfilled the hopes set on him. The Bagaudae were no match
for a skilled general, and were quickly tamed in a series of light
skirmishes, but the rapid victory was more merciful than a pro-
tracted war would have been®. Maximian seems to have received
at first the title of Caesar, or second in command, but certainly
for no long time, as it is never found on the coins^. Early in a.d.
286 Diocletian advanced him to the rank of Augustus, perhaps
subject to some restriction that we cannot precisely define, which
was only removed at the appointment of the Caesars in 293®.
Maximian had excelled all expectation and his troops were no
doubt forward in pressing his claims to reward, but it is unlikely
that Diocletian acted on anything but his own better judgment.
The Empire now rested on the ‘Concord’ of its two emperors
and each found his own sphere for service. In defeating the
Bagaudae, Maximian had gained some successes over the Franks
and directed Carausius, who distinguished himself in the war,
to take over command by sea against Frankish and Saxon pirates.
Carausius revolted and, as we shall see later, gave Maximian full
occasion to be busy in the north of Gaul and Britain. Meanwhile
in 286 and 287 Maximian had to repel an incursion of Alemanni
1 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 14 sqq.
^ There is no certain evidence of this visit.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 16 Eutropius ix, 20; Orosius vir,
25 . 2 - ' ■ ■ ■ 7 '
* Zonaras xii, 31 (p. 614). Maximian was adopted as Koiv<ov 6 <i in
the fourth or second year of the reign; M.-S. v, ii, p. 204; G. Costa, Diz.
Epig. s.v. Diocletianus, pp. sqq.
® Costa, ioc. clt. p. 1798; there were at first two years, later only one year,
between the two emperors in their tribunician count.
328 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
and Burgundians on the Upper Rhine and, two years later, found
the Alemanni again troublesome. In 288 Maximian, by the
victory of his Praetorian Prefect, Constantins, pushed the Franks
back to the ocean and concluded a treaty, restoring to their king
Gennoboudes his kingdom^. A revolt of the Moors in Africa
in 289— 90 was suppressed by Maximian’s generals. Diocletian
was more diversely employed. In 286, if not earlier, he won the
title of ‘Germanicus Maximus’ on the borders of Pannonia and
Moesia. In 288 he induced the Persian king, Vahram, to sur-
render all claim to Mesopotamia, perhaps also to Armenia, and
became ‘Persicus Maximus®.’ In the same year he set up his
nominee, Tiridates III, as king of Armenia. In the same year
again he was in Raetia, aiding Maximian against the Chai bones
and Heruli®. In 289 and again in 292 he fought the Sarmatians,
in 290 he turned back a Saracen invasion of Syria, in 291 he put
down a revolt of Coptos and Busiris in Egypt^. In all these years
the August! had met but once, at Milan, in the winter of 289 to
290 when their arrival drew envoys from Rome to congratulate
them on their concord and their triumphs®. An ‘adventus im-
peratorum’ at Massilia, spoken of in the Acts of the Martyrs^
cannot be identified and may be entirely unhistorical®.
Diocletian had by now matured his schemes for the division
of imperial power and chosen the right men for his purpose,
perhaps as early as 292, or even 291, though the formal act of
investiture seems to have fallen in 293. Constantins Chlorus, a
Dardanian nobleman of high repute and tried merit, was ap-
pointed Caesar to Maximian in the West, while Galerius, a
rough but able soldier, took the same rank under Diocletian in
the East. To bind both Caesars to himself and his colleague,
Diocletian required them to put away their wives and marry the
crown princesses. Constantins put away Helena, mother of
Constantine, and married Theodora, daughter of Maximian,
while Galerius gave up his former wife to marry Diocletian’s
daughter, Valeria’. Thus was established the famous Tetrarchy
1 Paneg. x (ii), 10, 3. 2 Costa, op. cit. p. 1801.
® Paneg. x (n), 5, i; xi (m), 7, 2. * Zonaras xii, 31 (p. 614).
® Paneg. xi (in), lo sqq.-, for the view that there was also a meeting in
287—8 see p. 385 n. I.
* Acta Martyrum (Passio SS. Victorh etc. ed. Ruinart, p. 333 s.f.).
’ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 24 sqq.\ Eutropius ix, 22; Orosius vn,
25, 5; Zonaras xii, 31 (p. 614 r^.). This tradition of the noble descent of
Constantius may prove in the end to be no more than part of the legend of
the house of Constantius: Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 26 sqq. makes
Constantius a rude countryman like his colleagues.
IX, V] CONCORDIA AUGUSTORUM 329
of Diocletian. One Augustus, Diocletian, held the East with
Egypt, Libya, Arabia and Bithynia under his own hand, and
Illyricum and, it would appear, the western part of Asia under the
care of his Gaesar, Galerius. The other, Maximian, held the West,
with Rome, Italy, Sicily, Africa, and perhaps Spain under his
control, while Gaul and rebel Britain were assigned to the Gaesar,
Gonstantius. Each Gaesar held the tribunician power, but was
subject in all things to his own Augustus, while Diocletian, by
his wisdom and ‘auctoritas,’ dominated all alike. Our authorities,
throwing the history of many years together, represent the choice
of Gaesars as due to a dire conjunction of present perils — Narses
in Persia, Achilleus in Egypt, Julianus and the Quinquegentanei
in Africa, Garausius in Britain. It has been well observed that
there is serious confusion here^. The appointments were actually
made in an interval of quiet, when the first problems of the reign
were well on the way to settlement and others had barely risen
on the horizon. The main crisis of the reign fell in the years 295
to 298, and by that time the Tetrarchy was in full working order
and was ready to give a dazzling proof of its worth.
The team of four was finer than its individual members. It
was strong in union and deserved the eulogy pronounced on it
in the Historia Augusta', ‘quattuor sane principes mundi, fortes,
sapientes, benigni et admodum liberales, unum in rem publicam
sentientes, perreverentes Romani senatus, moderati, populi amici,
persancti, graves, religiosi, et quales principes semper oravimus^.’
In the end, it is true, the expenses of four courts proved a heavy
burden, but in the first stages it was mitigated by the moderation
of the rulers. Diocletian came more under the reproach of avarice
than Maximian, who held the wealth of Rome and Italy, while Gon-
stantius enjoyed a unique reputation for restraint and generosity.
Omitting nothing that could strengthen his work, Diocletian
consecrated the Tetrarchy by placing it under the direct pro-
tection of the great gods — his own dynasty, the Jovian, under
Juppiter, that of Maximian, the Herculian, under Hercules.
Elite corps of Illyrian troops bore the proud names of Tovii’ and
‘Herculii.’ In Diocletian resided the divine wisdom, the ‘pro-
videntia’ of the supreme god, in Maximian the willing obedience
and heroic energy of his great coadjutor in the service of men. If
we may hazard a guess at the exact sense in which Diocletian and
Maximian were related to their divine patrons, we may say that
1 Costa, op. cit. pp. 1805 sqq.-, cf. passages collected above (p. 328, n. 7),
2 S.H.A. Carinus, 18, 3.
330 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
the Genius of each emperor, itself divine and an obj ect of worship,
was now declared to be the very Genius of Juppiter and Hercules
themselves. Juppiter and Hercules are actually at work, as
Victoria and Virtus had long been, in the spirits of their earthly
representatives^.
Although we are still three years short of the reform of Dio-
cletian, this is probably the best place at which to review his
pre-reform coinage^. It was essentially a continuation of the
previous reign. The mints were the same, except that Heraclea
and Treveri were added just before the reform. The main issue
was still that of the base billon xx. i piece. No silver was struck,
but gold appeared in moderate quantities, at first on the standard
of 70 to the pound, later at 60. For a very short period at the
outset there is one Augustus, Diocletian, alone; of Maximian as
Caesar there is no trace. Then come the two Caesars in 293,
commonly acclaimed as ‘Principes luventutis’ or ‘ praesidia rei-
publicae.’ While the types still bear on such natural themes as the
imperial vows, the Golden Age, the eternity of Rome, the virtues
and exploits of the emperors, the religious interest is definitely
to the fore, and, as we should expect, is focussed on the two
figures of Juppiter and Hercules. Other deities — Mars, Minerva,
Sol — have their honours, but of a lower order. The labours of
Hercules are once more used as symbols of the exertions of
Maximian for the good of the Empire, and Juppiter and Hercules
are commonly associated in a single type, as the divine patterns
of the two Emperors on earth. Not far behind in importance
is the ‘Concordia Augustorum,’ the keystone of Diocletian’s
building — a legend especially common in the Eastern mints,
which prefer to concentrate on a few themes of central importance.
The unusual type of the three Fates, ‘Fatis Victricibus®,’ reflects
the superstition which lay deep in the character of Diocletian.
He had a firm belief in aivination, he loved to probe into the
future and he attributed his own rise to the mysterious workings of
destiny. The divine world is related very closely to the human, and
the divine powers appear again and again as ‘Preservers’ or
‘Companions’ of the Emperors. The old paganism had always
been weak in theory, and even the elaborate reinterpretation
which the new Pythagoreans were applying to it could hardly
produce a satisfactory system of thought. It was not on its in-
tellectual side a creed for which any sensible government would
^ Cf. Mattingly, ‘The Roman “Virtues,” ’ Theol. Rev, xxx, 1937,
pp. lo^sqq. 2 M.-S. v,ii,pp. 2P4rjj.; see Volumeof Plates v, 24.0,0-/.
® See Volume of Plates V, 240, <4 .
IX, VI] THE COINAGE OF THE TETRARCHY 331
persecute. But paganism as a background to the historical
mission of Rome and her emperors had an altogether different
power. For this paganism the most religious emperors might
one day strike a blow.
VI. ^nU^TTUOR PRINCIPES MUNDV
Armed with the strength of the two new Caesars Diocletian
could face with confidence the trials that yet awaited him. The
problem for the moment was that of Carausius in Britain. A
Menapian of the lowest birth^, but of an ability and energy quite
above the average, he had won distinction in the wars with
Bagaudae and Franks in 2 8 6 (see p. 327) and had been appointed
by Maximian to command the Channel fleet and clear the seas of
the Frankish and Saxon pirates. Suspected of being less anxious
to check the pirates than to relieve them of their plunder and to
convert it to his own uses, he was sentenced to death by his
master, but, receiving timely warning, revolted together with his
fleet and maintained a hold on the north coasts of Gaul, while
the island of Britain hastened to welcome him as a deliverer (late
286 or early 287)^. Maximian was still on the Lower Rhine in
287 to 288, and, by April 21, 289, was in readiness to deliver a
decisive blow against the ‘arch-pirate.’ But the attack was
launched in vain on an admiral ‘perfectly skilled in the art of
war.’ Carausius seems to have gained a decisive victory at sea.
But he aspired to something more than a precarious independence
as a rebel. He offered and obtained peace and celebrated a
triumph, greater than any success of his arms, by striking coins
for ‘Carausius and his brothers,’ Diocletian and Maximian®. As
a token of reconciliation he abandoned his first irregular coinage
on the model of the Gallic Empire and struck the base billon
XX. I piece like the rest of the Empire. Aurelius Victor tells
us that he was permitted to rule Britain, because he seemed fit
to deal with the warlike nations that threatened the island h
The peace, however, though loyally celebrated by Carausius with
British issues for his colleagues, was not acknowledged on the
coins of any Imperial mint. The Empire was only biding its
time. In 293 Constantins set to work and blockaded Gesoriacum
(Boulogne) by a great mole drawn across its harbour. Carausius
^ But cf. E. Janssen in Latomos, i, 1937, pp. xbcjsqq., who makes him
a native of Britain.
2 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, igsqq.-, Eutropius ix, 21; Orosius vii,
25, 6. ® See Volume of Plates, v, 240, A.
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 39 ryj.
332 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
was powerless to protect the town, and Gesoriacum fell; but
victory was won by a mere hair’s breadth, for the first tide after
its capture broke the mole and opened it once more to the sea^.
Gaul was now lost to the rebel and, even in Britain, the authority
of Carausius was severely shaken. Allectus, his chief minister,
killed his master (293) and took over the defence of the island
realm^. Constantins was resolved to make no mistake. He
spent two full years on his preparations, subduing the sym-
pathizers with the rebels among the Menapii, while Maximian
brought up an Illyrian corps, the ‘ Virtus Illurici,’ to prevent any
possible diversion on the Rhine®. In 296, the Roman fleet was
ready for action. It put to sea in two detachments, under Con-
stantins himself and his Praetorian Prefect, Asclepiodotus. A
fog that separated the two squadrons enabled Asclepiodotus to
slip past the main fleet of Allectus, which was waiting for him
near Clausen turn (Bitterne by Southampton). Asclepiodotus
landed near the Isle of Wight, burnt his boats to commit his
troops to the adventure, and encountered and routed Allectus
somewhere in Hampshire. Allectus, flying from the lost battle,
was killed and only the wrecks of his army succeeded in reaching
London. The city was in danger of being sacked by this rabble,
when the fleet of Constantins, which had been lost in the fog,
sailed up the Thames and delivered the port of London from this
peril. Constantins was hailed as the ‘restorer of the eternal light’
of Rome, and extended his mercy to the repentant Britons^. The
attempt to make Britain an independent power, behind the wall
of its fleet, had ended as it was bound to end, in failure, but it
had been a gallant adventure.
The coinage of the British Empire throws some light on the
character and policy of its rulers as well as on the spirit and hopes
of the ruled®. Carausius is revealed as a man of original genius.
He began by striking base billon, like that of the Gallic Empire,
without the mark of value, xx. i, but struck beside it the first
good silver to appear from any Roman mint for many a long day.
Diocletian paid him the compliment of borrowing this change in
his reform of 296. Britain, it seems, was unwilling to accept the
coinage of Aurelian’s reform, and Carausius yielded to its wishes,
^ Paneg. viii (v), 6-7 (cf. Vi (vii), 5, 2).
^ Eutropius IX, 22; Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 40—41.
® See Volume of Plates v, 24.0, g.
^ Paneg. vin (v), 14—20; M.-S. v, ii, pp. 429 sqq. and references there
; gifen.:;^-:0E:K:-i ; V ;■
® M.-S. V, ii, pp. 426 sqq.
IX, vi] THE ADVENTURE OF A BRITISH EMPIRE 333
but, under the peace of 290, sacrificed financial independence
and came into the general Imperial system. Carausius struck at
a number of British mints — Londinium, Clausentum and prob-
ably Rutupiae (Richborough). On the continent, he struck at
Gesoriacum and, perhaps, even inland at Rotomagus (Rouen).
Considering himself a true Roman, he maintained the Roman
tradition and claimed to be a restorer of Rome. He honoured
legions under his command and others, stationed in the Empire,
from which he can hardly have had actual support. He dwelt
with justifiable pride on his fleet, claimed the protection of
Juppiter, Mars, Minerva and Neptune, boasted of his victories
but, even more, of his most glorious achievement, the honourable
peace with the Empire. It is a notable fact that the only quotation
from Virgil on a Roman coin occurs on the issues of this low-born
Menapian rebel— ‘ expectate veni ’ are the words of welcome with
which Britain greets her deliverer^. The coinage of Allectus is
less varied and interesting. It is confined to the two British mints,
Londinium and Clausentum, and is mainly concerned with the
virtues of the Emperor, notably his ‘Pax’ and his ‘Providentia,’
and the prowess of his fleet. A remarkable series of coins of the
fleet, ‘Laetitia Augusti’ and ‘Virtus Augusti,’ with the type of a
galley — perhaps the very names of Allectus’s flagships — is struck
in a much smaller size than the xx. i pieces of Carausius and
bears the signatures, q.l. and q.c. This perhaps represents an
attempt to launch a new denomination, the ‘quinarius,’ beside the
larger piece. But even on that larger piece, the mark of value,
XX. I, had disappeared with the breach with Rome, and the
British coinage was again independent^. The smaller piece, which
seems to belong mainly to the end of the reign, may be due to a
reform and reduction of the coinage, possibly in some relation to
the reform of Diocletian. The great gold hoard of Arras has
recently revealed something of the impression made by the
triumph of Constantius and his merciful restoration of the blessings
of Roman rule to a humbled and contrite province®.
Maximian, as has been said, had appeared in Gaul to ensure
its peace while the great expedition sailed to Britain. After
success in Britain was assured, the Emperor was called away on
an errand of his own. In Africa a troublesome confederacy of
Moorish tribes, the Qmnquegentanei, had risen in revolt, and
the local forces proved insufficient to suppress them. Late in 297
1 M.-S. V, ii, pp. 439, 510, nos. 554 sqq.
2 Ib. V, ii, pp. 438 sqq.
® JrSthuse, 1924, pp. 45 sqq.; see Volume of Plates v, 240, L
334 the imperial RECOVERY [chap.
Maximian marched to Africa by way of Spain, and made a speedy
end of the rebellion^ He was in Carthage on March 10,298 and,
later in that year, seems to have visited Rome for the first time in
his reign. Constantins was for a while detained by the affairs of
Britain : indeed, it is obvious that after the ten years of the British
Empire there were many things that needed attention and cor-
rection. He re-organized the d^efences of the island and laid the
foundations of a new age of prosperity. The Saxon pirates
in particular, who had been allied to the British emperors, were
now fended off by a Count of the Saxon Shore with an efficient
fleet and strong, well-distributed forts behind him. It must
have been in this new settlement of Constantins that Britain was
divided into the four provinces of Flavia Caesariensis, Maxima
Caesariensis and Britannia Prima and Secunda. In 297 the
Western Caesar established the Salian Franks on the island of
the Batavians. A little later, perhaps in 298, Constantins is found
again in Gaul, heavily engaged with a marauding horde of
Alemanni. He ended the campaigns by a brilliant and spectacular
victory near the ‘city of the Lingones,’ made all the more notable
by a sudden reversal of fortune. Beaten at first in the field and
narrowly rescued by ropes thrown down from the walls of the
city, he received reinforcements the same day and led them out
to break and scatter the enemy. After this exploit, the West
enjoyed some years of uninterrupted peace.
Diocletian and his Caesar had been equally busy in Illyricum
and the East. Galerius was set to serve his apprenticeship on the
banks of the Danube, warding off invaders and clearing ground
for cultivation by deforestation and irrigation. In 294 and 295
he had to deal with Goths on the move westwards towards the
territory of the Burgundians. At about this time forts were built
at Aquincum and Bononia on the Danube. In 296 or 297 there
was fighting against various peoples — Marcomanni, Sarmatae,
Bastarnae and Carpi — and the whole of the last-named people
was transferred to settlements within the Empire^. It was no
doubt to make room for such new immigrants as these that
Galerius spent his labours on land-reclamation® that does honour
to this rough soldier, but seems to have embittered his spirit, as
he saw others enjoying higher honours at less cost.
Diocletian, no doubt, was in the background, directing and
^ Orosius VII, 25, 8; Eutropius ix, 23.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 43.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xi., 9 sqq. (reported at the end of his life, but
obviously to be referred to an earlier date).
IX, VI] POLICY IN WEST AND EAST 335
encouraging his Caesar: we find him wintering at Nicomedia,
294— 5. 296—7 Egypt demanded his personal intervention.
That turbulent province had already needed correction earlier in
the reign; now, the capital, Alexandria, broke out in revolt and
created an emperor of its own. The Achilleus of our literary
authorities is undoubtedly the Domitius Domitianus of the coins,
who interrupts the coinage of Diocletian in its twelfth year,
29 5— 6, and strikes in two distinct years himself, 295—6 and 296—7.
His revolt is not clearly distinguished from the earlier revolt of
Coptos and Busiris, and it is, of course, possible that the same
man was concerned in both. But it is hardly to be imagined that
there was actually rebellion in Egypt from 293 to 296; it is far
more probable that the events of several years have been care-
lessly thrown together. Diocletian invested Alexandria and
forced its surrender after eight months, c. November 296— June
297^. The exact causes of the rebellion are unknown, but they
presumably had something to do with economic discontents in
connection with the monetary reform of Diocletian (p. 338). That
reform had not been long in working when Domitianus revolted,
and he himself struck coins of the old Alexandrian pattern as
well as the new. Those of the old pattern he may have issued to
please the Alexandrians, those of the new were needed to keep
in touch with the rest of the empire; on them he seems to have
struck for Diocletian, Maximian and the Caesars, claiming a
partnership in Empire as Carausius had claimed it in Britain^.
After his first anger had abated, Diocletian spent some time
in Egypt, re-ordering its affairs and making useful arrangements,
which were still in force when Eutropius wrote his ‘Breviarium®.’
It is probable that Diocletian drew some ideas to be applied
more generally throughout the Empire from Egypt, the most
highly organized of all the provinces.
In the summer of 296 a more dangerous enemy threatened the
Empire. Narses of Persia, succeeding Vahram III in 293, brought
back something of the spirit and energy of the great Shapur to
the Persian kingdom. Weary of subordination to Rome and at
^ Jordanes, Romana, 298, 300 M; Orosiusvii, 25, 8; Eutropius ix, 23;
Malalas xii,p. 308 ry. (Bonn); Zonaras xii, 31 (p. 614). For the coinage of
Domitius Domitianus, see Cohen, vn, pp. 53 rj’y.; W. Kubitschek, ‘Zur
Geschichte des Usurpators Achilleus’, Sitz. d. Ah, d. Whs. Wieriy 1928,
pp. I sqq.', U. Wilcken, Sitz. d. Ah. d. Whs. Berlin^ 1927, pp. 270—276.
There seems, on the whole, to be no sufficient reason for associating the revolt
of Achilleus at all closely with the earlier revolt of Coptos.
2 Kubitschek, op. cit. pp. 21 sqq. ® Eutropius ix, 23.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
variance with Tiridates, the vassal king in Armenia, he took
advantage of Diocletian’s preoccupation in Egypt and invaded
Syria. Galerius was called up from Illyricum and forced the
invader to retire towards Carrhae, but, following up his success
too impetuously, he was caught in an ambush at Callinicus and
heavily defeated, Diocletian had moved up to Antioch to support
his Caesar, and it will have been at this time that factories of arms
were established in Antioch, Edessa and Damascus^. He re-
ceived Galerius with a scorn deliberately calculated to inflame
his proud spirit, and made him follow on foot behind his chariot.
At the same time he accorded him the opportunity to repair his
fault. Galerius brought up reinforcements from the Danube
countries, veterans of such legions as V Macedonica and XIII
Gemina and Gothic auxiliaries from Dacia. Confident in his new
strength, he marched into Greater Armenia and, by strategy as
able as it was bold, outgeneralled and routed Narses and captured
a huge booty, including the wives and children of the Great King
Narses retired into the heart of his kingdom and Galerius pushed
on and captured Ctesiphon.
Galerius was in a mood to exploit his success to the full and
establish a new Roman province, but Diocletian ‘cuius nutu
omnia gerebantur’ prepared a less showy, but more permanent
settlement. The captives, hostages of the highest value, were
treated with all honour and lodged at Daphne near Antioch.
Narses renounced his ambitions and bent his policy to the re-
covery of his wives and children. His envoy, Appharban, pleaded
for a joint recognition of Rome and Persia by one another as co-
ordinate great powers. He was roundly rebuked by Galerius for
a false moderation of tone that accorded ill with the violently
aggressive policy of Persia. But, in the end, he was sent back
with some hope of a friendly settlement and, not long afterwards,
an Imperial Secretary, Sicorius Probus, met Narses on the river
Asprudas and concluded peace. The great difficulties raised by
the terms of this treaty cannot be discussed here; it must suffice
to say that Mesopotamia was definitely surrendered and a Roman
protectorate over Armenia was acknowledged. Five small pro-
vinces across the Tigris were ceded to Rome — Intilene (Ingilene),
Sophene, Carduene, Arsanene, and Zabdicene — and Nisibis was
fixed as a centre for the commercial relations between the two
empires. In return for all these concessions Narses received back
1 Malalas xii, p. 307, last four lines, p. 308, 1. i (Bonn).
2 Eutropius IX, 24; Jordanes, Romana, 301M; Orosius vii, 25, 9 sqq.
ROME AND PERSIA
IX, VI]
337
his captives, but nothing more. In order to avoid the appearance
of complete surrender, he raised objections to the clause touching
Nisibis, but here too, after mild pressure, he gave way^. The
triumph of Roman arms and diplomacy made an immense im-
pression. ‘ Circenses Adiabenicis victis’ were celebrated at Rome,
from May 13 to 17, and an arch, that still stands, was erected
at Thessalonica, to immortalize the victory. Galerius boasted
himself a son of Mars and, forgetting something of his old sub-
servience to Diocletian, began to force his claims and policies on
the senior Emperor. The Persian victory was to bear fruit in
other fields.
The middle period of the reign of Diocletian {c. 293 to 299)
saw the crucial test of his policy and administration. The Tetrarchy
sustained the trial as perfectly as its author could have desired.
Augusti and Caesars loyally supported one another in all diffi-
culties, distributing labours and covering one another’s rear
during campaigns. The recovery of Britain, the crushing of re-
volts in Mauretania and Egypt, and the crowning victory over
Persia, established confidence in the government and raised
Roman prestige to a height which it had not reached since the
days of Septimius Severus. The divine splendours of Juppiter
and Hercules already invested the two imperial houses. To these
were now added the glories of the kingdoms of this earth. Though,
as has been recently shown®, Oriental forms had already invaded
the Roman court, Diocletian took some decisive step in this
direction which struck the imagination of his own and later times.
He appears against a background of ceremonial and adoration as
of the Persian palace, arrayed in garments embroidered with gold
and jewelry, and gives full official recognition to practices which
before had been experimental. Persian kings were not as readily
murdered by their bodyguards as the Roman imperatores^ who
were only marked out by the purple cloak and mixed freely with
their comrades. Diocletian was astute enough to be taught by
an enemy and to add to the mysterious awe of religion the
splendours of Persian royalty.
Even before the conclusion of the great wars those changes
in administration which support Diocletian’s claim to be the
second founder of the Empire had begun to take shape. These
changes are described and discussed elsewhere in this volume
(chap, xi), but it is to be remembered that they were the con-
stant preoccupation of the Emperor. One side of this activity
^ Petrus Patricius, frags. 13, 14 (F.H.G. iv, p. 188 jy.).
® A. Alfeldi, in Rom. Mitt. xtxK, 1934, pp. i sqq.
cji.H. xn
zz
^ ^ THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
was directed towards the economic problems besetting the
Empire which were a legacy from his predecessors. It is for this
reason that they are reviewed in a separate chapter vii, together
with the epidemic of high prices which Diocletian sought, though
with small success, to remedy by his famous Edict maximis
pretUs. It may not, however, be out of place to point out here
the possibility that the Emperor himself had unwittingly helped
to produce the disease for which he sought to find a remedy.
Towards the end of a.d. 295 he added to the aureus a coin of
pure silver. He further made a billon piece, usually called a
/o//«, which was superior in size and weight to the xx. i coin of
Aurelian and his successors. The follis was now the first coin
below the precious metals, and may be regarded as equivalent
to the old sestertius, one-fourth of the silver piece. On the other
hand the xx. i coin was now to be reckoned at a half-sestertius.
Thus there was created a stable currency, but at the cost of a
very drastic devaluation of the xx. i piece, the coin with which
the market had been flooded during the past reigns. If we may
apply to this date the evidence of an important papyrus^ this
measure had an unexpected, but not unnatural result. The news
that the old coin was to be reduced in value led to a rush to
exchange it for commodities at any price, and in view of the vast
masses of it in circulation it is easy to see why there was a great
rise in prices which continued, only partly checked by the Edict,
until the efFect of the devaluation had worked itself out. The
Edict was issued in a.d. 301. Two years later other forces
challenged his statecraft, and claim some attention here.
Diocletian’s name has been traditionally associated with the
last and greatest persecution of the Christians, and his evil reputa-
tion has been only partially redeemed by his fame as administrator
and reformer. That persecution is considered elsewhere in this
volume (chap, xix), but its place in the political history of the
Empire must here be briefly defined. During the years which
followed the attempt of Decius and Valerian to break the strength
of the Church the Christian faith had secured its position : it was
now ‘a State within the State,’ too strong and too well disciplined
to be ignored. Could Diocletian in his devotion to the old
sanctities of public life and in his revival of pagan worship main-
tain a strict neutrality in face of a growing and ambitious Church .?
At first the problem was not urgent : the Church had lost some-
thing of its fighting spirit and was not quick to give provocation.
When about 295 Diocletian began something like a purge of the
1 P. Ryl. Inv. 650.
IX. VI] COINAGE REFORM AND PERSECUTION 339
army, seeking to remove from it its Christian elements, it was
still doubtful whether that repression would be further extended,
though it may be suggested that the coinage of the reform with
the type of Genius Populi Romani on its commonest denomina-
tion, the foUis — a type which continued unchanged into the
period of the persecution — shows the presence of ideas which
were later to declare themselves in action.
If it is sought to find reasons for the violent change in policy
which was effected by the edicts of 303 it can be urged that in
the early years of the reign military problems perforce took pre-
cedence: the religious issue was deferred till the end of the great
wars. Peace with Persia once concluded, Diocletian was free to
turn his mind to the completion of his task of internal re-organiza-
tion. Anxious to secure the foundations on which imperial
authority was in future to rest, he may well have come slowly to
the conclusion that the Christian Church must bow to his will.
The Emperor’s personal conviction inspired the edict against the
Manichaeans (p. 668): the gods of Rome had made Rome great;
senseless innovation might bring divine wrath upon the Empire.
The Christian in thought and social custom was a revolutionary,
regarding as evil demons the gods of the Empire’s worship.
Diocletian might thus with reason come of his own accord to the
reluctant conclusion that the peace of Gallienus had conceded
too much, that the Church must be coerced. And yet the sudden-
ness of the change in policy can hardly in this way be adequately
explained: pressure must have been brought to bear upon the
Emperor by representatives of a more aggressive and intolerant
type of paganism, and of these the leader was undoubtedly the
Caesar Galerius. His influence vastly strengthened by his Persian
victory, Galerius, with the enthusiastic support of Neoplatonist
champions of the older faith, compelled Diocletian to admit that
the challenge of the Christian Church must be boldly met.
Diocletian yielded to the insistence of his Caesar; his efforts to
prevent the shedding of blood proved fruitless, and at length the
task of suppressing the Church was left to those whose heart was
set upon the bloody work. Amongst the Christians there were
countless defections, but those who withstood the will of the
rulers of the Roman world were numerous enough to defeat the
imperial purpose. Diocletian found, like many a statesman both
before and after his day, that he had entered into conflict with
forces which did not obey the laws with which statecraft had made
him familiar^.
^ See, for a somewhat different interpretation, below, pp. 665 rjy.
340 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
VII. ‘PROVIDENTIA DEORUM, QUIES AUGUSTORUM’
On November 20, a.d. 303 Diocletian appeared in Rome with
Maximian to celebrate his vicennalia, give largesse to the people
and enjoy the acclamations of the old capital on his accomplished
work. He was uneasy, however, in mind and found the licence of
the Roman mob little to his taste. Even before the end of the
year he withdrew to Ravenna and entered on the consulship of
304 in that city^. Early in 304, on his journey to Nicomedia, he
suffered some form of nervous breakdown, which incapacitated
him for all public duties and seemed likely at one time to end in
death. Presently he recovered health, but let himself be convinced
that the State needed the services of younger men^. On May i,
305 he made a solemn act of abdication at Nicomedia, while
Maximian, from whom he had extracted a promise to retire with
him, abdicated at Milan. Constantins succeeded in the West, as
senior Augustus, Galerius as junior in the East. For the vacant
posts of Caesars, there were two natural claimants, Constantine,
son of Constantins, and Maxentius, son of Maximian. Both,
however, were passed over, on whatever pretext, and Severus
and Maximin Daia, both prot^g^s of Galerius, the latter a relative
also, were appointed, the one for the West, the other for the East.
These two appointments must have excited comment, not all of a
favourable character. But of definite opposition there was none.
The system of Diocletian had sustained its decisive test; the
transition from First to Second Tetrarchy was accomplished with-
out hindrance. Diocletian withdrew to his palace at Salonae to
grow vegetables, Maximian to a life of self-indulgence on his
country estates in Lucania. The gods had watched faithfully over
the succession, and our ‘ lords and masters, the most happy and
blessed senior Augusti,' could enter on their well-earned rest.
These events, if accepted at their face value, imply that
Diocletian was carrying but in its due time a scheme pre-arranged
many years before, when the Caesars were first appointed. That
abdication had been considered as a possibility from the outset
need not be denied. The whole purpose of the office of Caesar
was to train men for the chief rank, and such training would lack
half its meaning if promotion were to be indefinitely deferred.
Galerius, too, an even more ardent supporter of the scheme of the
Tetrarchy than its founder, contemplated retirement at the com-
pletion of his own vicennalia. But it is improbable that any special
terminus was fixed in advance. The most natural, the vicennalia
^ Lactantius, 17, 3. ® Lactantius, A /worf. 18.
IX, vn] THE ABDICATION OF DIOCLETIAN 3+1
of Diocletian, passed without a change, and there is much to show
that the actual occasion was rather forced on Diocletian than chosen
by him. For several years before 30 5 Galerius had been claiming
the full recognition of his great services. He had forced on
Diocletian the dangerous step of persecuting the Christian Church,
and had set up internal conflicts in his mind which must have
contributed to his collapse of 304. The choice of the new Caesars
has no meaning except as an illustration of the personal likes and
dislikes of Galerius. Christian writers concluded that Diocletian
abdicated because he despaired of success in the struggle he had
forced on the Christians. Aurelius Victor records that Diocletian,
‘imminentium scrutator,’ sought to escape that internal discord
and general crash, which, as he learned from his researches, was
impending. Some modern scholars have supposed that he would
have repented at the last of his original intention to abdicate, had
not Galerius brought such pressure to bear as his weary mind
could not resist’’-.
The verdict of history on the character and achievement of
Diocletian has on the whole been favourable. He vindicated the
majesty of Rome and carried her arms victoriously into every
quarter of the empire. He rebuilt the State on new foundations
and gave her under changed forms a new lease of life. He con-
trived an ingenious system of government which successfully
escaped the dangers to which his predecessors had succumbed.
He established a new basis of authority which finally ended
military anarchy. His one conspicuous failure lay in his religious
policy which may be contrasted with what Constantine achieved.
But nothing less than a deep change of heart could have turned
Diocletian from his innate conservatism and love of the old
religion to a frank acceptance of the new, and for such a change he
was too old. Constantine came to the task in the freshness of
youth, and he had Diocletian’s failure before him as a guide and
as a warning. Here, as elsewhere, it was given to him to complete
the work that Diocletian had begun. But the Empire had cause
to be thankful for Diocletian, as one ‘born for the good of the
State.’ He had served Rome loyally according to the light that
was in him, and he had fulfilled the tasks to which he had set his
hand; he was able to commit the burden of Empire to a system
of his own making and to carry into retirement the love and
admiration of his subjects. It is a wonderful path that leads from
Diodes, the low-born freedman, to Diocletian, ‘lovius,’ ‘felicis-
^ Lactantius, de mart. pers. 1 8. The theme has been much debated in
modern times; see the works cited in the Bibliography and below, p. 667.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
simus senior Augustus.’ Even if much of his building collapsed
in that fatal crash he had foreseen, there was that in his work that
had the quality to endure.
VIII. THE SECOND TETRARCHY:
GALERIUS IN POWER
The abdication of Diocletian, even if pressed on him at the
last against his own will, must have appeared to his subjects an
act of noble renunciation which set the seal on his life-work. The
Empire was still under the system that he had devised, and
Diocletian could hope to spend his declining years as most
honoured of ‘ Elder Statesmen,’ watching it enjoy the peace and
security that he had won for it. Maximian laid aside the purple
in quite another mood, loyal to the last to his great colleague, but
openly fretting at the unwelcome necessity. His talents and
inclinations were all for an active life ; retirement for him meant
stagnation. There seemed to be little danger, however, that, after
once having been persuaded to enter on his rest, he would force
a way back into public life.
Constantius Chlorus, Augustus of the West, was now senior
emperor, though Galerius, his colleague of the East, assumed the
leading position in all but name. The sons of Constantius himself
and of his former senior, Maximian, had both been passed over,
and Severus, the new Caesar of the West, no less than Daia in the
East, was Galerius’ man. Constantius held only Gaul, Britain
and Spain, while Severus held Italy, Africa and Pannonia. In
the East, Maximin governed Egypt and the provinces as far
north as Taurus, while Galerius himself held the rest of Asia,
Greece, and Eastern Illyricum. The facts are too eloquent to be
misunderstood. The actual arrangements represented the interests
and wishes of Galerius, and of Galerius alone. Constantius found
himself in a position where he must either accept virtual sub-
ordination to his junior or hazard a civil war. It was not merely
his gentle and merciful disposition, but also sound judgment
that made him hold his hand.
The new Augusti were men tried and approved by long and
successful service. Both were distinguished soldiers and ad-
ministrators, both loyal adherents of the new imperial system.
Beyond this the resemblance ceases, even if we make allowance for
the strength of the Christian tradition which glorifies Constantius,
the friend, and blackens Galerius, the enemy. Constantius was a
man of breeding and culture, of strong and refined religious
IX, VIII] GALERIUS AND CONSTANTIUS 343
sense, with more of the old Roman humanitas than the ordinary
Illyrian captain. Galerius, though himself ‘probe moratus,’ was
uncompromising, merciless and excessively ambitious; a more
fatal defect was his false standard of values as seen most tragically
in his religious policy (chap. xix). The new Caesars were both un-
known to the world at large. Severus was a good soldier but
nothing more, if we rule out his notable qualities as a boon-
companion. Maximin was a half-barbarous lad, a kinsman of
Galerius, who perhaps thought to use him as Diocletian had used
Maximian, as a clumsy but effective tool. He was afterwards to
reveal qualities, if not virtues, that surprised his maker.
Whether the unbroken peace of the new regime would have
endured for long cannot be decided, for, after little more than a
year of rule, Constantius died at York on July 25, 306. Signs of
troubles to come were not wanting. Early in the year Constantius,
who was preparing an expedition against the Piets, sent a direct
request to Galerius to dispatch Constantine to his assistance.
Constantine, the son of Constantius by Helena, the low-born wife^
whom he had put away to marry Fausta — according to some born
out of wedlock^ — had been brought up in the East at the courts of
Diocletian and Galerius and had shown early signs of ambition
and energy. Diocletian may have seen in him a kindred spirit
and trained him for future service. But this is nowhere recorded
and is certainly not proved merely by the fact that Constantine
lived to complete the reforms of Diocletian; the completion too
often looked like drastic revision. To Christians writing at a
later date Constantine’s boyhood seemed comparable to that of
Moses among the Egyptians, while Galerius appears as the brutal
tyrant who tries him with dangerous ordeals from which only
divine grace and his own courage deliver him®. After the ab-
dication of Diocletian, his position, however honourable in name,
was that of a hostage. The story of the flight of Constantine to
his father, travelling by forced marches and killing the post-
horses behind him to defeat pursuit, is undisputed. The secret
history of the event is less certain. Galerius may have suggested
delay, but he certainly did not refuse the request of Constantius
outright and finally gave Constantine his passport. Yet Con-
stantine flies like an escaped convict. The true explanation can be
^ Origo Constant, imp. (Mommsen, Chrm. Min. i), p. 7 » Zonaras xiii,
I (p. l); Eutropius x, 2.
® Zosimus n, 8, 2; ii, 9, 2; Zonaras, loc. cit. alternative account ordpepyov
epo 3 TiKwi‘ eTridvp,i,S>v.
® Origo Constant, imp. p. 75 2 ionaras xii, 33 (P* h23)»
344 the imperial RECOVERY [chap.
guessed, if not proved. Constantius, in demanding back his son
on a colourable excuse, was trying to recover his freedom of
action. Galerius, if he refused point-blank, would put himself
completely in the wrong in any quarrel that might arise from his
refusal. But between Galerius and Constantius lay Severus,
through whose territories Constantine must travel, and Severus,
the natural rival of Constantine, would hardly need a hint to
detain him on any excuse that might be found. Galerius would be
able to profess complete innocence and readiness to negotiate,
but Constantine would remain a hostage^. This was the subtle
design that was defeated by Constantine’s amazing energy and
foresight. He found his father still at Bologne and crossed with
him to Britain, where he conquered ‘ Britannicas gentes in intimo
oceani recessu sitas.’ Very soon afterwards Constantius died.
The meaning of the diplomacy of Constantius was now re-
vealed. Without thinking of waiting for the decision of Galerius,
the army, largely swayed by the counsels of the German allied
king, Crocus, acclaimed Constantine as its new ruler of the West.
His age and even more his abilities demanded that the defence
of the house of Constantius should be entrusted to him rather
than to his half-brothers, the sons of Theodora. Laureate images
of Constantine were sent to Galerius, to announce what had taken
place and to ask for his approval. The implications of the mission
were obvious to Galerius — ‘We recognize your supremacy, we
accept the requirements of the imperial system, we want no civil
war: but we will not submit to complete elimination.’ Galerius
was statesman enough to curb the paroxysm of anger into which
the news threw him, before he gave his reply. He accepted
Constantine as Caesar and advanced Severus to be Augustus of
the West®. He may have hoped thus to render Constantine harm-
less, until he could be dealt with later; he may even have made
an honest sacrifice of his personal resentment, in order to maintain
the order of the Tetrarchy without a civil war.
IX. CONSTANTINE AND MAXENTIUS:
FILII AUGUSTORUM
The elevation of Constantine may have shaken, but certainly
did not overthrow the system of government by tetrarchy. It had,
however, an immediate consequence which at once had that effect.
There was living in the neighbourhood of Rome one who had
1 Lactantius, de mart. pers. 24; Origo Constant, imp. p. 7; Zosimus ii, 8.
® Lactantius, (sJs wjer/. 255 Eusebius, I, 22.
IX, IX] CONSTANTINE 345
even better claims to the succession than Constantine — Maxentius,
son of Maximian, born of no dubious or morganatic match, but
in lawful wedlock. It was only later that rumours spoke of him as
a supposititious child. If Constantine was to be placed in his
lawful position by the troops, why should not Maxentius hope for
the same justice.? Had there been no public wrongs to reinforce
a private grievance it is doubtful if Maxentius would have had
the energy to enforce his own claim. But Rome and southern
Italy were already bitter over their loss of privilege and subjection
to taxation, and, above all, over the suppression of the Praetorian
Guard — a step taken by Severus at the instigation of Galerius^.
A conspiracy led by Marcellianus, Marcellus and Lucianus, the
officer in charge of the pork market, was supported by the Guard
and gained immediate success. There was little resistance, but
Abellius, the ‘ vicarius’ of the City Prefect, lost his life. Maxentius
was proclaimed princefs and acknowledged in Rome and South
Italy, while the North still held to Severus, who had his seat at
Milan. Africa at once joined Maxentius and relieved him of
anxiety about the food-supply. But his position was precarious and,
with the approval of the Senate, he sent the imperial insignia to his
father, who left his retirement in Lucania to rally the army in his
support®. But it was in vain that Maximian tried to draw Dio-
cletian with him into the vortex.
Galerius had accepted one compromise, but he was in no mood
to accept a second. Apart from his personal aversion to Maxentius
and Maximian, he saw in the new move a deadly threat to the
whole imperial system for which he stood. He declined to
recognize Maxentius and ordered Severus to march against him.
Severus, like a loyal colleague, obeyed and led his army up to the
walls of the capital. But from this point the campaign would not
go according to plan. Rome kept her gates stubbornly shut, and
secret agents were soon at work in the ranks of Severus, whose
soldiers had served long under Maximian and felt the call of the
old loyalty. Judicious bribery completed what diplomacy had
begun, and Severus had no choice but to retire rapidly on
Ravenna. Maximian, who had by now resumed his position as
Augustus, followed him and succeeded in inducing him, on the
promise of his life, to commit himself into his hands (early 307)®.
Severus was imprisoned and kept as a hostage against Galerius,
^ Lactantius, de mort. pers. 26, 2-3.
^ lb. 26; Eutropius X, 2, 3; Origo Constant, imp. p. 8.
® Eutropius X, 2,4; Lactantius, 26; Origo Constant, imp.
p, 7; Zosimus II, 10, 2 . ■ ^ ^
346 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
while Maxentius assumed the title of Augustus. But Galerius
still remained to be dealt with. It could not be hoped that he
would tolerate the indignities that Severus had suffered, and it
became necessary to seek all possible reinforcement against him.
While Maxentius stayed in Rome, Maximian travelled to Gaul
to sound the intentions of Constantine, who was already showing
great vigour in his administration. Maximian offered him in
marriage his own daughter, Fausta, to whom Constantine had
already been betrothed some years earlier. The two motives — to
secure his own position and to weaken the dangerous might of
Galerius — proved sufficient. Constantine received Fausta in
marriage, acknowledged Maxentius as Augustus and himself
accepted promotion to that rank at the hands of Maximian^.
Meanwhile the storm broke on Italy. By the summer of 307
Galerius had completed his preparations and, leaving his comrade
Licinius to hold Illyricum for him, he marched into Italy and
reached Interamna without a battle. Much to his surprise and
dismay he soon detected symptoms of that same disaffection
among his troops that had been the undoing of Severus. Giving
up the countryside of Italy to his men to plunder, he withdrew in
baffled rage to Pannonia to reconsider his plans^. The invasion of
Galerius had been fatal to Severus. Probably during the absence
of Maximian in Gaul he was put to death at Tres Tabernae in
defiance of the agreement®. The hold of Galerius on the West was
completely lost. What part Constantine played in these machina-
tions remains uncertain, but he certainly refused the opportunity
to join in crushing Galerius on his retreat.
Late in 307 Maximian re-appeared in Rome and proceeded
to embroil matters still further by a coup (Til tat of his own. For
whatever reason — personal ambition, anger at the treachery
shown to Severus, or intrigue in the interests of Constantine,
now his* son-in-law — he summoned the troops to a meeting and
tried to tear the purple from the shoulders of his son. But the
scheme miscarried. Maxentius took refuge with the soldiers,
who refused to listen to the father and drove him out, ‘like a
second Tarquin,’ to seek refuge in exile at the court of Con-
stantine^.
Galerius then proceeded to seek a solution on his own lines.
The whole system of Diocletian was threatened, now that the
West had broken away under two Augusti and one senior
^ Lactantius, de mart, pers, 27.
^ Zosimus 1I5 105 Origo Consimt, imp, p. 7 sq, ® Zosimus n, 10*
^ Lactantius, de mart pers, 285 Eutropius x, 3, i.
IX, IX] THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST 347
Augustus of its own. What more fitting than that the authority
and wisdom of ‘lovius’ himself should be called in to safeguard
what he had built.? Diocletian was nominated to the consulship
of 308 with Galerius and was called to a conference at Carnuntum
at which Maximian also was present. Diocletian would neither
return to the helm himself nor suffer Maximian to remain there.
Licinius, a trusted comrade-in-arms of Galerius, was set up as the
second Augustus at his side; Maximin Daia was still to be the
Caesar of the East, while Constantine was reduced to the same
rank in the West. Maxentius was declared a public enemy
(November 308)^. The forms of the Tetrarchy were thus re-
stored, but the restoration was as short-lived as it was artificial.
Maximian fled once more to Constantine in Gaul. Maxentius
maintained himself in Rome and Italy. Constantine refused to
submit to degradation, and Maximin Daia, hitherto a submissive
follower of Galerius, protested against the promotion of Licinius
over his head. Galerius tried to satisfy their claims by bestowing
on them the title of ‘filii Augustorum’ in place of that of Caesar.
The concession was only accepted as a step to full recognition,
and both Constantine and Maximin are soon found claiming the
title of Augustus^. The system of two August! and two Caesars
was at an end, and six Augusti together divided amongst them-
selves the rule of the Roman world. The primacy of Galerius,
it is true, remained unquestioned, but the new system, resting on
no general basis of agreement, was obviously unstable and only
needed some slight shift of the balance of power to break down
completely. The ‘fatal crash’ that Diocletian had foreseen was
impending; it was not merely the love of the simple life that made
Diocletian prefer to cultivate his garden at Salonae.
It was rapidly becoming clear that Diocletian’s elaborate
scheme to subordinate persons to his system must ultimately
prove a failure. The marvellous ‘ Concordia’ of the First Tetrarchy
had been a lucky accident. The system was too complicated to
escape disturbance from conflicting claims of heredity or service
and clashes of temperament and will. It was on the personalities
of its six rulers that the future of the Empire now mainly depended.
Increasing years and responsibilities did something to steady
and deepen Galerius’ character, but nothing to enlarge his
sympathies or his understanding. He was loyal to what he knew,
but incapable of fresh learning. The old Maximian returned to
Empire worse than he had left it. He was almost purely mis-
^ Zosimus IX, 10; Lactantius, de mart. pers. 29, 2.
^ Lactantius, de mart, pers, 32, 5— 6.
348 THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY [chap.
chievous and destructive, ‘vir ad omnem acerbitatem saeviti-
amque proclivis, infidus, incommodus, civilitatis penitus expersL’
Maxentius, bis son, was apparently a man of no especial force of
Ghafacter. Under the influence of supreme power he seems to
have yielded to licentiousness and cruelty, and to have alienated
the personal sympathy he had once enjoyed. His real importance
lay in the fact that he represented the old claim of Rome to
especial honour. When men could hope for a better champion of
the same claim in Constantine, they soon abandoned Maxentius.
Maximin Daia developed a s trength and independence of character
that could hardly have been expected of him. His personal
character was bad and he bears the same stigma of cruelty as the
other persecutors. But there are still left one or two indications of
a more favourable side to his character, and it was something that
a persecutor should advance as did Maximin from mere repression
to a deliberate attempt to reform paganism on lines suggested by
the persecuted religion^. Licinius appears first as a mere piece
in the game of Galerius, a good soldier devoted to his cause. But,
as his later career was to show, he was perhaps the most detestable
of all the hard men of his age, self-seeking, unimaginative and
coldly cruel.
Finally, in Constantine we meet one of those rare personalities
who leave a decisive mark on history. His great vigour of mind
and body, his personal courage and soldierly ability were in them-
selves enough to bring him to the fore. But to these were added
gifts of a rarer quality. He was a born organizer and leader of
men, with an immense capacity for forming schemes and finding
the means of carrying them out. It is with full justice that he
ranks with Diocletian as joint founder of the new Empire. But
he had something beyond this that Diocletian never had. Like
Diocletian, he could meditate on the causes of social and political
events and devise new solutions for old problems. Unlike him,
he could submit to the influence of new ideals on his own inner
thought and life. All this still lay in the future, but as early as
308 he was marked out as the coming man on whom rested the
hopes of the many who had seen the promise of Diocletian’s
Golden Age recede and die away.
For a time the six August! ruled side by side, untroubled by
any serious disturbances from without' — so sure was the peace
that Diocletian had established. Constantine in Gaul had cam-
paigns to fight against barbarians on the Rhine and gladdened the
hearts of his subjects by exhibiting captive Germans as gladiators
^ Eutropius X, 3, 2. * Lactantius, de mart. pers. 36, 4.
IX, IX] THE NEW RULERS 349
in the arena^. But the initiative, as it seems, lay with him. He was
practising his soldiers and training his own vast energies for
greater tasks to come. After Carnuntum the old Maximian re-
turned to his court, still in name senior Augustus, but without
any real imperial function. Restless and ambitious to the last, he
sought means to overthrow Constantine and tried in vain to use
his daughter, Fausta, against her husband. Finally, when Con-
stantine was marching Rhinewards he revolted and seduced a
body of troops; but he was besieged and captured at Massilia
and died by his own hand (early 310)®. It was a serious step for
Constantine to take— to be consenting to the death of the once
great ‘Herculius,’ the father of his wife and the first bestower
of the Augustus title on himself, but it is hard to see how he
could have escaped the necessity. The link with the Herculian
dynasty was now broken and Constantine, to find a new basis for
his authority, encouraged the legend that his father, Constantins,
was descended from Claudius II. Sol Invictus was adopted as
the patron deity of the dynasty and began to appear in great
prominence on Constantine’s coins.
Maxentius meanwhile remained in undisturbed possession of
Italy, expressing himself according to his own ideas of govern-
ment. Though no persecutor on principle he made himself hated
by his cruelty, lust and greed, but the Praetorians were com-
mitted to his cause so that no attempt to dislodge him without
external aid could hope to succeed. His ambitions to found a
dynasty, however, were blighted by the death of his son Romulus
in 309. On one occasion when a great fire broke out in the city
and, in the confusion, the soldiers came to blows with the people,
a serious massacre was only narrowly averted by the intervention
of the Emperor®. A rebellion in Africa threatened the corn-
supply of Italy and might have proved fatal to Maxentius had
any of his rivals chosen to abet it. The details are obscure. A
body of troops favouring Galerius deserted the service of Maxen-
tius. Maxentius, in alarm, demanded as hostage the son of
Alexander, who was acting for him as prefect in Carthage. Alex-
ander, a Phrygian by birth, an old man of weak and irresolute
character, still found the courage to refuse this demand and
declared himself emperor. Rufius Volusianus was sent to Africa
by Maxentius with a few cohorts and soon made an end of
Alexander and his cause, the city of Carthage paying heavily
1 Paneg. vi (vii), 1%.
® Lactandus, de mort. pers. 29—30; Zonaras xii, 33 (p. 622).
® Zosimus II, 13.
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
350
[chap.
for her treason (3 1 1)^. It was not in Africa or by Alexander that
Maxentius was to be overthrown. Now that Maximian was dead
and disowned by Constantine, Maxentius re-discovered his filial
loyalty and struck coins in honour of him as ‘Divus.’ What is
even more remarkable, he struck also in honour of ‘Divus Con-
stantius Cognatus,’ seeking thus to establish a double claim to the
Empire of the West.
Galerius was now looking forward to his vicennalia^ the cele-
bration of which was due to begin on May i, 31 1, and was
levying taxes unmercifully to fill his cofi^ers. It had been his
intention earlier to use the occasion for his own abdication and to
hand over the government to Severus and Licinius as Augusti,
and Candidianus, his son, and Maximin Daia as Caesars^. But
circumstances had proved refractory, and retirement now would
have meant the death-blow to that system of government to
which he still clung as an ideal. But the solution of the problem
was taken from his hands. He fell ill of a terrible and disgusting
malady and died within a month of the celebrations on which he
had expended so much anxious care. The death of the first
Augustus was bound to have serious consequences, and did in
fact almost lead to a direct outbreak of civil war. Maximin Daia,
who from 308 had been asserting his individual rights against
Galerius, occupied Asia and marched north to the Bosphorus.
Licinius hastened to meet him on the other side of the Straits, but,
at the last moment, the two rivals agreed to accept the delimita-
tion of their powers as actually determined at the moment^. But
a decisive struggle was impending. The four Augusti were no
longer bound together in one system of loyalty, and their number
was not a strength but a weakness. Constantine began to turn
decidedly against Maxentius, branding him as a tyrant and seeking
the support of the Christians in his dominions. Licinius, who had
at least some sense of political strategy, drew closer to Con-
stantine and became betrothed to his sister, Constantia. It was
inevitable that Maxentius and Maximin should seek alliance to
protect themselves against a coalition that threatened them both*.
The invasion of Italy, and the battle of the Milvian bridge were
soon to free Rome of her tyrant, and Maximin was to die soon
after a broken fugitive from Licinius at Tarsus. A few more years
and Constantine was to be ruler over a united Empire.
The coinage of the period has a double interest apart from the
economic (p, 338)®. The history of its mints illustrates the
^ Zosimus II, 14. 2 Lactantius, de mort. pers. 20 . ® lb. 36.
^ Lactantius, de mort. pers. 43. ® See Volume of Plates v, 242.
IX. IX] THE DEATH OF GALERIUS 351
political quarrels and alliances, the return of Maximian as senior
Augustus, the new mint of Maxentius at Ostia, the coinage of
the pretender, Alexander, at Carthage. The types throw light on
the last phases of dominant paganism, with Juppiter and Mars
still high in honour, Hercules, receding with the collapse of the
Herculian line, Sol returning to supremacy in the coinage of
Constantine. Maxentius, as might be expected, concentrates
attention on the old sanctities of Roman religion and particularly
on the worship of Roma herself. But it was under the concept of
Genius, in his various aspects, that paganism fought its decisive
battle with Christianity. ‘Genius Populi Romani,’ ‘Genius Im-
peratoris,’ ‘Genius Augusti ’—these are the types that fill the
token coinage which passed through all men’s hands. It was the
creative spirit, immanent in ruler and people, that was set against
the spirit of Christ, working through the Church. The ‘Sol
invictus comes’ of Constantine was carried over from his pagan
to his Christian period. Sol might become to the world, as he
had become to Constantine himself, a symbol of Christ.
Diocletian, watching from Salonae the final breakdown of his
system after the death of Galerius, may well have felt that his life-
work had been in vain. Nor would such a feeling have been
without its deeper justification. However much of the body of
his reforms might be carried over into the system of Constantine,
the spirit was changed. A new conception of the relation of the
temporal world to the divine had won its way to triumph. The
gods were no more to be mere expressions of the forces that moved
in human government, The eternal was now recognized to be the
real, of which even the majesty of eternal Rome was but a re-
flection. Christianity had proved its power of disruption in
shattering the old foundations of the Roman State. Would it
now prove equally capable of providing a new spiritual basis for
the secular power, or was the strife of Church and State hence-
forward to be a constant factor of political life? Here were
questions to stir the passionate interest of the new generation of
Constantine. The older generation, with its great representative,
Diocletian, must have closed its eyes wearily on a new world
that it could no longer understand.
CHAPTER X
THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE
I. FOUNDATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT
OF THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY
C ASSIUS DIO tells us (liii, 28, 2) of a decree of the Senate,
of the year 24 b.c., promulgated in favour of Augustus, by
which he was freed from the compulsion of the laws and received
full liberty of action; and he sees in this the foundation for a real
absolutism. The so-called lex de imperio Vespasiani^ contains the
same clause and points to the same conclusion, although it
includes the restrictive provision: ‘uti quaecunque ex usu rei
publicae maiestateque divinarum humanarum publicarum priva-
tarumque rerum esse censebit, ei agere facere ius potestasque
sit.’ Recent penetrating research^ has, in the opinion of the
present writer, removed the doubt (vol. xi, p. 407) whether
this right had in fact been expressly granted at the very beginning
of the Principate. We can now look beyond the wholly personal
auctoritas of the first princeps and see the constitutional auctoritas
upon which Augustus could pride himself as the essential basis
of his power®. Particularly in the case of Vespasian, this auctoritas
was created for a new ruler by the powers conferred through the
lex de imperio : at the moment it was in no way merely personal.
The emperor received, now and for the future, full freedom of
action ; and the limitation that he should rule in accordance with
the interests of the State, lost importance, inasmuch as he was
left to judge whether the condition was fulfilled. This legal
formulation and foundation of the emperor’s power had done
all that a law could do to make the Principate an autocracy
(vol. XI, p. 408). For, indeed, the provision, that State interests
should be regarded, which was still maintained to debar the
Principate from becoming an open absolutism, was not a barrier
strong enough to prevent self-willed men from setting up an
autocratic regime^. At all events, it seemed later that the lex de
^ Dessau 244; Bruns, Pontes'^ 56, 11 . 21 sqq.
® A. von Premerstein, Vom Werden und Wesen des Prinzlpats, aus dem
Nachlassherausgegeben von H. Volkmann, Bay. Abh. N.F. Heft 1 5, 1937,
pp. 176 sqq. ® von Premerstein, op. cit. pp. 187 sqq.
* von Premerstein, op. cit. p. 192.
x,i] THE POWERS OF THE FIRST 353
imferio or lex regia marked the transference of full sovereignty
to the emperor. Even Ulpian^ in his day declares that what the
princeps has decided has the force of law, because, by the lex {regia)
concerning the imperial powers, the People has transferred to
him all its own power and competence. And such a champion
of unlimited absolutism as Justinian I could still recognize in
this law the foundation of the imperial sovereignty, when he de-
clared that by the old law, described as the lex regia, all the rights
and powers of the Roman People had been transferred to the
emperor^. If we turn back to Cassius Dio, even for him the
position of the first princeps is already a complete monarchy, just
because People and Senate have made over all power to him®.
The systematic description of the imperial power which he gives
in this connection contains in a different form a similar statement
of the unlimited power of the monarch^. When we take the
words which Dio uses to express the significance for his own day
of the Senate’s decree in favour of Augustus, we find that for him
the emperor is ‘ truly absolute ’ (awroTeXijs ovrm) and ‘ not subject
even to his own decrees or the laws’ (avTOKparmp xal iavrov
Kal rS>p vopwv). For Dio, the emperor’s supremacy is no longer
founded on the outstanding personality of the ruling princeps-.
the institution of monarchy had long been taken for granted as
indispensable, so that any and every occupant of the throne is
regarded as representative of this form of government.
The auctoritas of the first princeps was not merely founded on
his political supremacy, but was supported by the attribution to
him of innate supernatural and superhuman capabilities and
characteristics, which made him seem god-sent and his actions
divinely inspired. His authority had a religious as well as a
political sanction, already apparent in the very name Augustus
(vol. X, p. 483). It has been called ‘charismatic auctoritas'^. With
the inheritance of the political form created by the authority of the
first princeps, with the name of Augustus, borne by his successors
to mark their exceptional position, with the imperial cult, the
outcome of the ‘charismatic’ auctoritas of the first Augustus, re-
mained inseparably bound up the idea of the ruler’s ‘charismatic’
^ Dig. I, 4, I, pr.; cf. Dio Chrys. Or. in, 43, o Be v 6 /ji.o<; jSaaiXea)^
Boyu.ai von Premerstein, op. cit. p. 177.
* Const. Deo auctore § 7 = Cod. Just, i, 17, i, 7.
® Dio uii, 17, I ; cf. vol. X, p. 589.
* Dio uix, 18, I ; cf Lxxvi, 14, 6.
® M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Grundriss der Sozialokonomik,
m. Abt.), p. 140} cf pp. 753 sqq.
354 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
character. But in place of the real charisma attaching to one
peculiar supreme personality, an charisma was sub-
stituted.^ Although it could obviously only be spoken of in
connection with the individual ruler, the auctoritas granted by
law and confirmed by force of religion really attached to the in-
stitution of the emperor. Thus Pliny, in his Panegyric on Trajan,
could put forward the idea: ‘the gods have given thee supreme
power and control over all things, even over thyself’ 2. The
consciousness of an imperial power created and blessed by the
gods grew continually stronger, and made it possible for good
and bad rulers, forceful, ambitious men and weak youths in need
of guidance, the well-born and parvenus, all to represent this
imperial power, and for all alike to be recognized as the instru-
ments of a divine guidance and providence manifested in their
elevation to the throne®. Coins with the legend Providentia
Deorum are rightly pointed out as the expression of this con-
ception*. The picture of the ‘exalted one’ (der Erhabene) endured,
of the iure meritorum oftimus princeps, the ideal ruler who knew
how to combine auctoritas and libertas\ and its glory was never
wholly lost, even in the period of naked absolutism after Dio-
cletian®. But the possibilities’ of opposition which were latent in
the defence of libertas by the Senate®, the repository of ancient
traditions, must not be overlooked (see below, pp. 372 sqq^.
First we must follow the course of developments in the position
of the emperor, which led at last to absolute autocracy in the
fullest sense of the words.
The limitation by tradition of the monarchy, which had grown
up in the course of two centuries, is apparent in the passage of
Dio from which we have already quoted: ‘the names Caesar
and Augustus give him no new powers, but the first shows his
right to the succession, the second the splendour of his position’
Dio may have been thinking primarily that Septimius Severus, by
^ Weber, op. clt. p. 774. F. Schulz, Prinripien des romischen Rechts,
p. 124 iy.
® 56, 3 : imperii summam et cum omnium rerum, turn etiam tui potesta-
tem di transtulerunt.
® A. Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, l, igsSy P -75
* A. D. Nock, Harv. Theol. Rev. xxiii, 1930, p. 266 sq.', M. P. Charles-
worth, ih. XXIX, 1936, pp. 1 18 sqq.
® See the references in U. Gmelin, Juctoritas. Romhcher Princeps und
pdpstlicher Primat in Geistige Grundlagen romhcher Kirchenpolitik, For-
schungen zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte 1 1, 1937, pp. 69 sqq., 77 sqq.
* Cf. E. Kornemann, Die ronusche Kaiserzeit, p. 72 sq.
^ Dio un, 18, 2.
X, i] CHARISMATIC AUTHORITY 355
his fictitious adoption into the family of Marcus Aurelius (see
above, p. 12), hoped to appear as the chosen successor of the
imperial line. He did officially so appear when he dedicated a
memorial to Nerva, ‘Divo Nervae atavo,’ as the ancestor of his
family^ and his purpose is clearly reflected in the numerous
inscriptions in honour of Severus and his sons that emphasized
this relationship^. The ruling emperor wished to be able to look
back upon a long line of divine forbears, and he did so; he got a
share of the glory that radiated from them. But his attempt to
build up a legal foundation for his position can also be seen —
the conception of a hereditary dynastic title to the throne. We
may see in Dio’s words the idea of the unbroken, and for him
natural, succession of emperors, and his equally natural acceptance
of the institution. ‘The splendour of his authority’ (rrjv roC
dficy/aaTos Xa/j-TTporriTa) Dio connects with the name Augustus.
It is accidental, but significant, that he uses the same word for
this auctoritas as that used in the Greek version of the Res Gestae
Divi Augusts at the words ‘auctoritate omnibus praestiti®.’ Dio
finds an addition to auctoritas in the name Augustus, though he
does not define in what this addition consisted. It is, however,
easy for us to recognize in this the supernatural splendour of the
emperor’s position; emperor-worship, which is treated of else-
where'*, was the worship of this godlike element. Here we shall
adduce only such facts as made a significant contribution towards
the changes, or rather the development, in the position of the
emperor. It should be said at once that it is often hard, when
dealing with the marks of deference and the ceremonial by which
the emperor was set apart from all other men, to distinguish be-
tween what was still the honour done to a human being and what
was already the worship of a divinity®. It is true to say, in general,
that spontaneous respect for an outstanding personality gave place
to an obligation to respect the idea of a ruler, personified in the
holder of the office; an obligation that found justification in
philosophy and theology®. We hardly ever meet with anything
entirely without precedent; but the tendencies of earlier times
are fixed and potentialities become certainties, Hellenistic in-
^ Dessau 418.
® E.g. Dessau 420, 422, 431, 448 ry., 454, 458. Cf. Alfoldi, op. cit.
p. 82 sq. J. Hasebroek, Untersuchungen vour Geschichte des Kaiser Septimius
Severus, p. 88 sq. ® V. Ehrenberg, Klio, xix, 1925, p. 210.
* Vol. X, pp. 481 sqq. ; below, pp. t^.izsqq.
® Cf. Nock, Harv. Stud, xu, 1930, p. 50 sq.
® Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, xux, 1934, p. 67,
356 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
fluences, rooted in an Oriental past, had already caused much of
this development, and closer contact with the East was bound to
bring about further progress in the same direction.
II. THE DIVINITY OF THE IMPERIAL OFFICE:
GOD-EMPEROR AND EMPEROR BY THE GRACE OF GOD
The curious adoption-decree of Septimius Severus marks, as
we saw, a step in the direction of emphasizing the divinity of the
ruling emperor. With him and his successors there are ever
clearer signs of an increasing prominence given to the divine
nimbus. For some time, indeed, adoratio had been paid to the
likeness of the emperor (and in law the original and the likeness
were identical), for instance in the army^ ; and there not merely the
portraits regarded as standards, the imagines^ but also the statues
in the shrine where the standards were kept were worshipped.
It was in keeping with the general policy of the Severi that
emperor-worship was made prominent in the camps. This is
true, although the imperial portraits did not yet bear the titles
of gods. The inscription on an altar from the Raetian limes^
which the prefect of the cohors III Britannorum set up in honour
of Caracalla, Geta and Julia Domna, ‘mater Augustorum et
castrorum,’ as well as to the Capitoline Trinity and the genius
cohortis^, names the emperors before the gods, thus indicating
their full divinity. It is equally noteworthy that, at the erection
of a shrine in the camp at Lambaesis, statues and likenesses of
members of the imperial house, the domus divina, are mentioned
first, before their tutelary deities^. We may see in these examples
both the desire of Septimius Severus to exalt and assure his own
position by divine consecration, and also the influence of his Syrian
consort on the development of the imperial cult. Her title ‘mater
castrorum’ had indeed been already created by Marcus Aurelius
for Faustina*. But it had a new emphasis, and its ultimate ex-
pansion into ‘mater castrorum et senatus et patriae’ was bound
everywhere to connect it closely with emperor-worship ; while the
more frequent use of the phrase domus divina, with its stress on
divine origin, also bears witness to the same tendency. The de-
sired deification is unmistakable on a coin showing Geta crowned
* Alfoidi, op. cit. pp. 67 sqq.‘, and see vol. x, p. 483^7.
® C.I.L. HI, 5935. A. von Domaszewski, Die Religion des romischen
Heeres, p. 76, no. 163.
® Dessau 2445; von Domaszewski, op, cit. p. 85, no. 180.
* Dio Lxxii, 10, 5 (p. 261 Boissevain); Alfoidi, op. cit. p. 69.
THE DOMUS DIFINJ
X, ii]
357
with rays as the Sun-god and his right hand raised in the act of
benediction, which bears the legend: Seven invicti Aug. pii
fil(iusY. This shows him as the offspring of the unconquered Sun-
god and Sun-emperor. The intention and thesis is plain, allowance
being made for its appearance on a coin officially produced by
the State mint. Coins with the image of the empress are less
discreet, as is shown by the changes in the form of her diadem
under the Sever!. For the diadem, which became the attribute of
the Augusta in the second century, develops into something like
a sickle moon. Together with the emperor’s halo of sun-rays, the
sickle moon, used below the bust of the empress, is the un-
mistakable sign of divinity. Emperor and empress appear as sun
and moon, symbols of the Oriental aion idea in reference to the
aeternitas imperifi\ and the third-century emperor is on the way
to become ‘partner of the stars, brother of the sun and moon’
like the Sassanian king®. Julia Domna, ‘mater Augustorum,’
is undisguisedly portrayed as Cybele*, while coins with the image
of Cybele and the legend Mater Deum or Matri Magnae may
have been intended to hint at the same idea®. The empress is
also depicted sitting on the throne of Juno, as mater Augustorum,
mater senatus and mater patriae^, while Julia Mamaea is similarly
represented’. The emperors, indeed, refrained from appearing, as
Commodus loved to do, in the dress of the gods and did not
emulate his appearance on the coins (vol. xi, p. 389 jy.)®. Only
in the second half of the century, since Gallienus andPostumus,
does this tendency become stronger until it reaches its culmination
in Jovius Diocletianus and Herculius Maximianus.
Parallel with this development, the world of gods was revalued
in honour of the emperor as numen praesens^. The gods became,
so to say, helpmates of the emperor, as the epithets custos and
conservator, sospitator and tutator indicate, until, with the designa-
tion of a divinity as comes Augusti, Heaven appears as the copy of
the imperial courP®, and an inscription Herculi Aug. consorti d. n.
^ Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, t, 1935, p. 107 sq.
® Cf. E. Norden, Die Gehurt des Kindes, p. 137 Alfoldi, op. cit.
pp. 124, 143. See Volume of Plates, v, 230, «.
® Cf. Ammian. Marc, xvii, 5 > 3 > A. Christensen, L’ Empire des Sas-
sanides, p. 88.
* Cohen^ iv, p. iie^sq., nos. 116 sqq.', Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 109, n. 3.
® Cohen® iv, pp. 1 15 sqq., nos. 122 sqq., no. 140 sq.
® Cohen® iv, p. 1 14, no. no sq.‘, Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 1 15.
Cohen® iv, p. 494, no. 43 sq.‘, Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 126.
® Cf. Alfoldi, op. cit. pp. 104, 106. ® Cf. Dessau 453.
See above, p. 319; Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 98; cf. Dessau 3811.
358 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
Aureliani invicti Augusti was possible^. In the matter of oaths,
too, the State gods lost importance in comparison with the
emperor, for to swear by the imperial genius was legally more
binding than to swear by them^. In addition, the emperor whom
the world obeyed received ever new attributes, which connected him
with the heavenly lord of the Universe whose divine power was
all-embracing. Septimius Severus and Caracalla are compared on
coins to Sol, the rector orhi^\ and fundator facts was added on an
inscription^ under Diocletian in 290. The latter formula alone
appears already on the coins of Septimius Severus®. Since Valerian
this is matched hj facator orbis^, restitutor generis humanP and
restitutor orhis% since Aurelian by restitutor $aeculi\ and this latter
title points to the emperor as the inaugurator of a new Golden Age.
This official acceptance of theocratic claims on the part of the
reigning Augustus, as the restorer of the happiness of his age
(Commodus had once caused his own reign to be proclaimed as
‘ the Golden Age’)^®, is also traceable in the names and Felix
commonly given to the emperors from the time of Commodus.
There may have been in these still some idea of the piety of the
favoured of the gods;' but first assumed by Commodus
and invariably used after the second half of the third century, is
thereafter to be connected with the Oriental Sun-god^^. Aeter-
nitas Augusti is regularly used oh coins from the reign of Gordian
III, together ferpetuitas ixora. that of Severus Alexander^^;
and both imply not only a claim to divinity hereafter but also
the recognition of the true divinity of the living emperor, who
is ‘deus et dominus natus.’ This appears first on the imperial
coins of Aurelian either in the dedicatory form of words ' deo et
domino nato Aureliano' or even more simply in the ioxm Imp(eratort)
1 Dessau 583.
® Dig. xn, 2, 13, 6 (Ulpian); Tertullian, Jpol. 28; Minucius Felix,
Octav. 29, 5; cf. H. Kruse, Studien zur offiAellen Geltung des Kaherbildes
im romischen Reiche, p. 59-
® Cohen® iv, p. 63, no. 596; p. 200, nos. 541 sqq. * Dessau 618.
® Cohen® iv, p. 25 sq., nos. 202 sqq.
® Webb in M.-S. v, i, pp. 55, 91, nos. 218, 294; cf. Index v ib. v, i,
p. 410 and V, ii, p. 678.
’ M.-S. V, i, p. 55, no. 220; p. 91, no. 296; the Emperor with right hand
raised in blessing and with the globe in his left hand. Cf. Dessau 5 lO, 577 sq.
® M.-S. Index v in v, i, p. 412; v, ii, p. 682.
® M.-S. V, i, p. 290, no. 235, cf. Alfoidi, op. cit. p. 99.
Dio LXXiii, 15, 6 (p. 297 Boissevain); S.H.A. Commod. 14, 3.
Alfoidi, op. cit. p. 89 sq.
Cohen® iv, p. 421, no. 190 sq. and v, p. 26, nos. 36 sqq. Cf. perpetuus
M.-S. V, ii, p. 679; Dessau 613; with aeternus Dessau 614.
X, II] D£US ET DOMINUS 359
deo et domino Aureliano^ with restitutor orbis on the reverse^, and
after him also for Probus and Carus^. From the time of Caracalla
coins often bore, besides the official titles of the emperor, the lion
of the Sun,® indicating the theological derivation of the imperial
regime from the Sun-god; and finally the divinity of the em-
peror was made plain by putting busts of the emperor and a
god side by side. Thus Hercules appears with Postumus^ and
on the reverse of some coins Mars or Juppiter with the same
ruler^; Hercules again with Probus and Maximian®; Mars with
Victorinus'^; Sol with the same® and also with Probus, sometimes
in the form, Sol comes Probi Aug., which ignores the emperor’s
titles and only stresses his divine aspect®. The preponderance
of the emperor is plain at last, when Carus is represented with
Sol and the legend is only: Deo et domino Caro invic[to) Augiustd)^^.
It was taken for granted, especially from the reign of Septimius
Severus onwards, that in imperial dedications such phrases as
devoti numini eius'^^ or devotus numini maiestatique eius^^ should
appear. That this common formula should have lacked a religious
significance seems very unlikely^®. For even if we are unable to
say whether or when the conception that the emperor himself
was a numen, a divinity, and not merely the wielder of a godlike
power^^ was read into this formula, there must have been a
religious significance attached to it. Indeed, one may say that in
the phrase numen maiestasque both the ‘ charismatic ’ and the con-
stitutional auctoritas were comprehended; and this fact helped the
emperor’s maiestas by reinforcing it with the divinity attributed
to him, as the divina maiestas of Diocletian shows^®. In the same
way, it became the certainly commanded rule in the third century
^ M.-S. V, i, pp. 264, 299, no. 305 sq.
2 Ih. v, ii, pp. 19, 109, no. 841; p. 114, no. 885; pp. 133, 145, no. 96;
p. 146, no. 99 sq.
® E.g. Cohen® iv, p. 179, no. 335; p. 182, no. 366; p. 184, nos. 401 sqq.-,
V, p. no, no. 157; p. 165, no. 42; M.-S. Index ir in v, i, p. 383; v, ii,
p. 633. Cf. Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 85.
^ M.-S. V, ii, Index iv, p. 630.
® Ih. V, ii, p. 358, no. 264; p. 360, no. 283. ® Ib. v, ii, p. 630.
® Ib. V, ii, p. 389, no. 30; p. 394, no. 90.
® Ib. V, ii, p. 388 sq., nos. 12, 21, 25,
® Ib. V, ii, p. 644 and especially p. 108 sq., nos. 829, 835.
Ib. V, ii, p. 146, no. 99. E.g. Dessau 421, 426, 547.
Dessau 431, 470 and 482 including the empresses; 552 for the Em-
press Salonina; 568 sqq.
So D. M. Pippidi, ‘Le Numen Augusti,’ Rev. des St. lot. ix, 1931,
p. 103, n. 2. ,
Cf. F. Pfister, P.W. s.v. Numen, col. 1285 sq. Dessau 627.
36o OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
(though there are earlier examples of its tentative use) to speak
of the emperor in inscriptions as dominus noster(d. n.^-. Here, too,
religious motives are at work®.
Once the emperor had grown god-like, and emperor-worship,
originally provincial, had become universal, so that an African
citizen colony could dedicate an inscription to the ‘ God Aurelian®,’
that other tendency, to acknowledge his position as superhuman,
to see in him the medium of divine intervention and to recognize
him as divinely favoured, could lead men to admit and to demand
an especial position for the sole master of all. How these two
tendencies could both lead up to the deification or sanctification
of the ruler is shown by two inscriptions dating from Diocletian, the
first of which is a dedication to the diis genitis et deorum creatorihus
dd. nn. Diocletiano et M.aximiano inntictis Augustis^, the oth.tr to the
diis auctoribus ad rei fublicae amplificandae gloriam procreato
lovio Maximo^. Of Aurelian, who let himself be worshipped as
a god, the writer who continues Dio tells us® that he informed
mutinous soldiers that they were mistaken if they believed that
the fate of the emperor was in their hands, for God alone could
bestow the purple and determine the length of a reign. Cassius
Dio puts comparable words into the mouth of Marcus Aurelius’.
We have spoken above (p. 354) of the meaning of the legend
Providentia Deorum for this conception. Here we can add that
even Balbinus and Pupienus, who were nominated by the Senate®,
and also Tacitus, used this symbol on their coins. And anyhow we
may interpret also Providentia Augustorum as another expression
of the idea of rule ‘by the grace of God.’
This idea of divine favour is especially noticeable on coins
which occur earlier but become ever more common in the third
century, on which a divine patron gives the emperor the globe,
the symbol of his power over the world®. Roma still appears
^ Cf. M. Bang in Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms^ iv, p. 82; AlfSldi,
op. cit. p. 81 sq. ® Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 92, n. 2.
® Dessau 5 ^ 5 ! S^^ 7 - * Dessau 629.
® C.l.L. irr, 12326; cf. N. H. Baynes, J.R.S. xxv, 1935, p. 84; Alfoldi,
op. cit. p. 84.
® Petrus Patricius frag. 178 (Boissevain, Cassius Dio, iii, p. 747. F.H.G.
IV, p. 197).
^ Cf. on the question of a possible connection of the two accounts,
Rostovtzeff, Soc, and Econ. Hist* p. 617, n. 37.
s Cohen^ v, p. 1 1, no. 23 sq.i p. 17, no. 33 sqr, v, i, pp. 345, 348,
nos. 195 sqq., 212.
® Cf. A. Schlachter, ‘Der Globus/ Stokheia vin, 1927, pp. 64 ^^7, 5
Alfoldi, op. cit. pp. 1 17 sqq.^ especially p. 1 19.
X, III] THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE FAVOUR 361
with Gordian III and Florian^, as she frequently did earlier.
More often, Juppiter performs the investiture, as on the coins
of Severus Alexander, Gallienus, Aurelian and Probus, Carus,
Carinus and Numerianus^. In the case of the last two, the
investing figure may also be their father Carus ; and it is certainly
Diocletian, who receives himself® the globe from Juppiter and
hands it to Maximian^. Sol appears in this r6le on the coins of
Gordian III and Aurelian®. Coronation by a god may be explained
in the same sense. Thus Sol crowns Probus; Sol and Hercules
crown Carus and Carinus; Hercules crowns Postumus®. Where
Mars appears in this capacity there may also be a reference to
those by whom the emperor was chosen (see below, p. 369).
Whether men believed in the revealed divinity of the emperor
or in a divine favour upholding him, there was always something
divine about his person and his office. It was just this idea of
divine favour which made it possible later for the Christian
emperors to express the peculiar sanctity of their position in the
traditional ceremonial, to receive the due expressions of reverence
and to retain the imperial insignia and dress’.
III. THE COURT AND ITS CEREMONIAL.
DRESS AND INSIGNIA
The character of the sources for the decisive period of transition
in the third century rarely enables us to describe with confidence
the external setting of the imperial power. For it is just in such
matters that the Historia Augusta generally gives only the facts
of the time of its composition. Characteristic features due to
adulation and the growing pre-eminence of the princeps had their
tentative beginnings in the first two centuries of our era. But it
is almost impossible to say how far and when they reached fixed
and obligatory forms. The habit of calling everything to do with the
emperor sacrum (so that the word finally came to mean ‘ imperial ’)
is apparent e.g. in the phrase cognoscens ad sacras appellatione^,
^ Cohen® V, p. 48, no. 269; p. 51, no. 284; M.-S. v, i, p. 358, no. 90.
® Cohen® iv, p. 421, no. 190; M.-S. v, i, p. 103, no. 440; Index iv,
p. 375; V, ii,p. 640; pp. 163 lyy., nos. 202, 206, 209; p. 177, no. 314; p. 191,
nos. 376, 380; p. 202, nos. 406, 470.
® M.-S. V, ii, pp. 255 sqq., nos. 321 ryy., 328 sq.
^ Ib. p. 288, no. 583.
® Cohen® v, p. 66, no. 496; M.-S. v, i, Index iv, p. 375,
® M.-S. V, ii, p. 61, no. 4041^.; p. 167, no. 225, p. 338, no. 17.
’ Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, xux, 1934, pp. I sqq,-, ib. L, 1935, pp. i sqq.
® Dessau 1190
,.36:2:;,.' 'THE END .OF: THE/PRINCIP ATE Ickap.:
which dates from the middle of the third century; and the holder
of the court office a cognitionibus is sometimes fro curator
sacmrum cognitionum^ itom which, even before Diocletian, the title
magister sacrarum cognitionum^ is probably derived. But this use
of the word may not yet have been strictly oifficiah In the same
sense, the description of an imperial rescript of 10^ m sacrae
litter may be mentioned; as also the use of theta efhtolehj the
proconsul of Asia^ ; and as early as the reign of Commodus a pro-
curator speaks of the sacra suhscriftio domini nostril. In view of
this, the passages quoted in the Digest ivom Ulpian, Paul and
others, mentioning the are not to be regarded
as interpolations. As so often happens, unofficial and semi-official
usage probably preceded the official. As another example of this,
we may mention the imperial mint, sacra monetay so called
once in an inscription dating from the reign of Hadrian”^, but
first used on gold coins by Cams and his sons, in S(acrd) M(oneta)
A{ntmhensisf y and on consecration coins of Cams from the mint
of Siscia in the form S(acra) Mionetd) S{i$ciensisf . In view of
these developments, it is probably correct to say that the term
sacrum palatium was not an innovation of Diocletian^®, especially
since Rome had been called urbs sacra in official documents from
the time of the Seven and had thus become the ‘imperial city^^.'
The emperor, dwelling in the sacrum falatiuMy must be
approached by those deemed worthy of the honour in the humble
attitude oi froskynesis, H\i\^ attitude was derived from a mixture
of the gestures of supplication and prayer with Eastern practices.
As the source is untrustworthy, it is impossible to decide whether
there was really a greater insistence on froskynesis under Elagabalus
which Severus Alexander then forbade^^, or whether we should
^ Dessau 9021.
2 Ih, 1459; cf O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsheamterfi^
p. 330; A. E. R. Boak, Harv, Stud, xxiv, 1915, p. 98. ® Ditt ® 881.
^ Abbott and Johnson, Municipal administration in the Roman Empire,
p. 466; cf. Rev. des Stud. grec. xix, 1906, p. 86 sq.
^ Dessau 6870. Bruns, Pontes’^ 86, coL 4, 11 . 12 sq.
® E.g. Dig. xxni, 2, 60 pr.\ XXVI, 7, 5, 5 ; xl, 1,5 pr.\ xm, i, 27.
^ Dessau 16385 Hirschfeld, op. cit. p. 186, n. 3.
® M.-S. V, ii, p. 149, no. 1225 p. 201, no. 464 sq.
^ M,“S. V, ii, pp. 129, 147, nos. 108 sqq.
Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, xlix, 1934, p. 32.
H. Jordan, Forma urbis Romae regionum XIV, p. 85 cf. Hirschfeld,
op. cit. p. 284, n. 35 Dessau 98, where Caracalla aquam Marciam .. .in
sacram urhem suam perducendam curavit\ cf. Dessau 1128, 1370, 8979.
Friedlander, op. cit. p. 32, n. 7,
f^.}l.K.Jlex.Sev.i%, i.
X, III] PROSKTNESIS 363
interpret this alleged prohibition only as a misunderstood report
of an alteration in the form of the ceremony. Such a change is
attributed to the younger ‘Maximinus/ who sometimes expected
his foot and not his hand to be kissed^. In any case, proskynesis
was taken for granted by Cassius Dio, by Herodian and by the
panegyrist of Philip (see p. 8 8 although we cannot be sure
exactly what form the ceremony took at the courts of the Severi
and their successors. Adoration of pictures of the emperor may
have influenced the development, but again there is no clear
evidence. Herodian® tells of homage done to the pictures of
Balbinus, Pupienus and Gordian on their accession. A gold coin
of Postumus shows us for the first time a representative of the
People, on his knees before the enthroned emperor, receiving a
benefaction^. Under Gallienus we hear of those who met the
emperor performing proskynesis even in the streets of Rome®. When,
moreover, Caracalla is reported at a reception to have been merely
‘greeted' {salutatusf, it is perfectly possible that the ceremony
of proskynesis is meant; for later sources, in which onij proskynesis
can be intended, give the name ordo salutationis to the order of
precedence in which it was to be carried ouC. The description
of Caracalla’s reception also gives the order in which the various
ranks performed the ceremony: Praetorian Prefects, amici (vol. xi,
p. 425), heads of court offices, members of the Senate and
equites. It is uncertain whether precedence was then arranged at
the will of the ruling emperor, or whether it was already fixed by
rule. The latter seems more probable, and must then have gone
beyond the long-standing division of the ‘friends’ into the first
and second admissio. With the stricter regulation of the admissio, a
department of the court, the officium admissionis^ which was known to
Suetonius®, grew in importance. As early as the third century its
president ranked as eques and had the title of magisier. Probably
the velarii^ who drew the curtains (vela) of the audience-chamber,
belonged to this office®. Even if we can believe that Severus
^ S.H.A. Max. duo, 28, 7.
® Dio Lxv, 5, 2 (p. 1 21 coissevain); cf. rvin, 11, 2; Herodian in, ii, 8;
Et9 /SacTjXea 19 = Ps. Aristides n K, 257 sq.
® vm, 6, 2; cf. S.H.A. Max. duo, 24, I sq.
* M.-S. y, ii, p. 359, no. 276; Alfoldi, op. at p. 58.
® Plotinus, v, 5, 3; Alfoldi, op. cit. p. loi sq. ® Cod. Just ix, 51, i.
’ Cod. Theod. vi, 22, '],pr. (of a.d. 383); cf., for the etiquette of greeting,
Alfoldi, op. cit p. 28; Friedlander, op. cit pp. 90 sqq.
® Suetonius, Fesp. 14.
® C.I.L. XIV, 3457; cf. Hirschfeld, op. cit pp. 310, n. 2, 314, n. 3.
Boak, »/>. oV. p. III.
364 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
Alexander showed consideration to the senators in the rules for
their visits to him^, we none the less get a general impression
that the emperor was becoming increasingly remote and etiquette
increasingly stiff, so that in the end not only ordinary visitors
but also advisers had to remain standing in the imperial presence.
It has been rightly concluded from the types on coins which
show the emperor seated and surrounded by standing allegorical
figures, and at a later date on his throne in the presence of stand-
ing gods^, that the custom of standing before the emperor is earlier
than the reign of Diocletian, in which it is first certainly attested®,
though the term instead oi the t'axVLtr consilium is
possibly not older than this period. Since the above-mentioned
coin-types begin with the reign of Severus Alexander^, it seems
unlikely that he made a rule of allowing every senator the right
to sit in his presence after saluting him®.
As regards dress and insignia, fixed forms to distinguish the
unique position of the emperor had also developed. Although
Septimius Severus, at his entry into Rome, exchanged his military
dress for the toga®, the wearing of uniform in the City, which
indicates the progressive militarization of the rdgime, became
increasingly common'^. Up to the end of the third century the
toga fraetexta was still worn, it is true; but the emperors tended
more and more, on festive occasions, to wear triumphal costume
as their gala dress, while for empresses gold-embroidered robes
of State were already the fashion®. The vestis alha triumphalis,
a variation of the triumphal costume, can be seen on a painting
of Septimius Severus and his family®, in which golden garlands
set with gems show a tendency to over-elaborate Oriental pomp;
and this style of ornament became commoner, until it finally
assumed the form of a diadem set with precious stones, which is
only a garland translated into jewelry^®. From the beginning,
however, military dress was always better suited to show rank and
superior position. The Imperator alone had the right to wear the
■paludamentum or the purple mantle, and even in his day the historian
^ S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 4, 3.
® Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 43 sq. ® Cod. Just, x, 48, 2.
* Cohen® IV, p. 442, no. 406; p. 481, no. 5 so.-, p. 491, no. 15.
® S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 18, 2.
® Dio Lxxv, I, 3 (p. 325 Boissevain).
Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, t, 1935, p. 8.
® AlfSldi, ib. p. 26.
® K. A. Neugebauer, Die Antike xii, 1936, PI. 10; p. 157 sq.-, Alfoldi,
op. cit. p. 32 sq.
So R. Delbrueck, Spatantike Kaiserportrdts, p. 59 sq.
X, lu] THE DRESS OF THE EMPEROR 365
Tacitus saw in it the symbol of sovereignty^. This idea is yet
more marked, when from Pescennius Niger onwards^ donning
the purple becomes more and more prominent at the assumption
of imperial power. The purple (purpura) thus became the mystic
symbol of power, and men could suppose that the dying Gallienus
wished to single out Claudius as his successor by sending him
the imperial mantle®. Gold embroidery appears in regular use
on the imperial purple from the time of Commodus, and the
setting of fibulae, belts and so on with precious stones, which
was still thought by the soldiery to be ‘unroman’ in Macrinus,
and must have met with opposition in other cases, was eventually
accepted. So too, the elaborate ornamentation of the imperial
chariot and harness, had become regular distinctive marks of
the emperor by the beginning of the third century^.
As the triumphal robe became the gala dress of the emperor
and as at the same time he himself became divine, the sceptre
with the eagle, generally used with civil costume, became part
of the insignia perhaps even before the reign of Diocletian . The
long sceptre, symbol of the power of the father of the gods,
which already appears in the painting of the Severi and which
third-century emperors mostly carried when wearing military
costume®, indicates the divinity or the divine investiture of the
emperor; so that Constantine and his successors, who ruled ‘by
the grace of God,’ could retain it. When the globe changed from
being the symbol of the universe to being that of sovereignty
is not certain ; but the fact that Caracalla as ‘junior Augustus ’, and
Philip the younger as Caesar, are both represented with it® makes
it probable that the change had taken place by their time. It
can be shown that from being an emblem in the portrayal of
emperors, it had become a real part of the insignia from the
fourth century, though coins which show the Augustus giving it
to his co-regent may point to an earlier date'^. Nor was the
wearing of the diadem, in which the change to autocracy is
most emphatically expressed, a use regular since Constantine,
^ Tacitus, Ann. xii, 56.
® Herodian ii, 8, 6; v, 3, 12; vi, 8, 5.
® Aurelius Victor, Cues, xxxm, 28; Epit. xxxiv, 2; cf, Alfoldi, op. at.
p. 50 sq.
* Alfoldi, op. at. p. 58 sq. with Rom. Mitt. XLix, p. io8.
® Alfoldi, op. at. pp. 1 1 2 sqq.
® Cohen^ iv, p. 186, no. ^iisq.s v. p. 165, no. 46; cf. Alfoldi, op. at.
p. 120.
’ E.g, Tetricus to his son, M.-S. Y, ii, p, 416, no. 204 sq.y cf. for Carus
and his sons and for Diocletian see above, p. 361, nn. 2 sqq.
366 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
wholly without precedent in the third century. Apart from the coin-
types that show the emperor with the headband of the sun-god,
there are many others that show the radiate diadem, that is the
royal diadem with rays attached, which indicated the sovereign,
and the Romans thus grew accustomed to the sight of the once
forbidden royal headgear. The first known official use of the
diadem without rays is on a commemorative medal of Gallienus^;
according to the literary sources Aurelian wore the diadem‘d.
Finally, besides the chair of office, the sella curulis, which the
emperors as consuls still retained in later times, the throne had
become a special mark of distinction. This sign of monarchy, too,
had a religious origin ; and as the court took on a sacral colouring,
it became so integral a part of the imperial splendour® that this
chair, originally the seat of the gods, was innocently adopted by
the Christian emperors as a symbol of their power.
Torchbearers accompanied the emperor on his public appear-
ances; and they were an essential part of the honours paid to him^.
Cheering by the populace as the emperor passed by, which had
begun even earlier, was prescribed and ceremonially regulated
before the beginning of the third century. By the same period, ac-
clamation in the Senate had also become the rule®. The protocols
of the Arval Brothers for 213 show how firmly established this
mode of addressing the emperor in a kind of litany had become®.
Of the examples of acclamations by the Senate given in the Historia
Augusta, only the single example in the Vita Commodi may be
accounted genuine'^. Dio tells us of the hymn of praise to the
emperor which culminated in the description of the emperor
as a deity®.
The marks of honour which the emperors inherited from the
consuls were also maintained. Lictors carrying fasces decorated
with laurel-leaves accompanied Gordian I at his entry into
Carthage®; lictors are depicted at sacrificial ceremonies under
Trebonius Gallus. None the less, this train of lictors was not
^ Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 148.
^ [Aurelius Victor], Epit. xxxv, 5 ; Malalas xii, p. 299, 20 (Bonn).
® Herodian ii, 3, 3 sq.\ in, 8, 6; iv, 5, l; cf. Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 125 sq.
* Herodian i, 8, 4; ib, 4; 11, 3, 2; 8, 6; vii, i, 9; 6, 2; cf. Dio lxxii, 35, 5
for Marcus Aurelius; Alfoldi, Kom. Mitt, xlix, 1934, p. 117.
® O. Hirschfeld, Kleine Schriften, pp. 691 sqq.-, Alfoldi, op. cit. pp. 83 sqq.
® Dessau 451.
^ S.H.A. Comm. 18 sq.-, cf. J. M. Heer, Der historische Wert der Vita
Commodi, pp. 1 87 sqq.
* Dio Lxxvii, 6, 2 (p. 361 Boissevain); lxxviii, 5, i (p. 378 Boissevain);
cf. Herodian n, 3, 3. ® Herodian vn, 6, 2.
X, IV] IMPERIAL INSIGNIA AND POMP 367
always present, and its appearances were probably confined to
the occasions on which the emperor performed certain acts as
magistrate or imperator^. For long before, besides or often without
the civil attendants, the military escort {fia-a-CkiK^ tto/atttt) had be-
come the most distinctive feature of imperial processions. As early
as Caracalla adverse comment was aroused when the Praetorian
Guards, fully armed, accompanied him into the Senate, contrary
to previous custom®. In this action, too, we may note the pro-
gressive militarization which went hand in hand with the trans-
formation of the first citizen into an autocratic monarch. It is
usual to distinguish this new form of the monarchy from the
Principate under the name of Dominate. But it may be observed
that, just at the period of greatest absolutism, dominus becomes
the ordinary form of address, dominus noster is no longer
reserved exclusively for the emperor. It would be better to adopt
the words of Dio about the monarch ‘autocrat over his own
decrees and the laws ’ (avTOKpaTap xal eavrov xal rutv vopav) as
giving the essence of this later unveiled and avowed absolutism;
and to use this term ‘Autocracy’ to distinguish the later absolutism
from the Principate of the early Empire®.
IV. THE APPOINTMENT OF THE EMPEROR:
ELECTION AND DYNASTIC EXPERIMENTS
However far above his subjects the emperor might be, he
owed his position to the expression of the popular will. Even
though he and the theorists might see in this expression the
divine providence and the favour of Heaven at work, consti-
tutional considerations were not forgotten. Through its repre-
sentatives the People chose the princeps% but the consummation
of popular sovereignty was at the same time its destruction^. At
first, the Senate voiced the People’s will. But after the death of
Commodus the secret, which Tacitus at Nero’s fall could still
call the arcanum imperii, namely that a princeps could be made
elsewhere than in Rome®, was a secret no longer. Indeed it was
soon almost the rule. It is proper to speak of this period as one
of military monarchy, or even military anarchy, in so far as this
indicates who were the most prominent agents in deciding who
should mount the throne. But so long as the emperors had to
reckon with the prestige and resistance of the Senate and while
the senators held fast by their admitted claim, the right of the
1 Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 102. ® Herodian iv, 5, i.
® Cf. above, vol. xi, pp. 400, 417.
* So Mommsen, Rom. Staatsrecht, 11®, p. 1 133,
® Tacitus, Hist, i, 4.
368 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
Senate and the Roman People to take part in appointing the
emperor remained undisputed. But th.&p opulus Romanus found that
almost the only right left to it was the modest r 61 e of acclaiming
the new ruler. Only in the elections of the two emperors created
by the Senate and in that of Gordian III as Caesar did the People
play a part, and that more by way of riot than in form of law^;
yet special reference was made to the People, acting with the
Senate^. But normally, the People’s functions remained purely
ornamental. Yet even in the late fifth century, at the election of
Anastasius, allusion is made to the consent of the People, as well
as of the Senate and the army®.
The regular practice in the third century was for the army to
proclaim the new emperor, after which the Senate gave its formal
agreement either at the request of the emperor himself or else
on being merely informed. We cannot say how often the patres
bowed to hard necessity in the exercise of this right to which
they clung; for only once, at the election of Maximinus, is it
reported that they approved the actions of the legions because it
was dangerous for the unarmed to oppose the armed forces^. It
is not surprising that the accumulated hate felt for the Thracian
trooper elevated to the throne should have moved the senators
at the first opportunity to carry on the struggle begun by their
election of the Gordians with men of their own choice, Balbinus
and Pupienus. But their real power was small; so small that they
then had to accept a boy as Caesar and later to acknowledge as
Augustus Aemilianus, whom they had formerly proclaimed a
traitor®. Indeed, after the murder of Aurelian, when his army
turned to the Senate for the appointment of his successor, the
paires answered that this was the army’s duty, so that it was only
after some interchanges that the Senate decided to elect Tacitus®.
A remark of the biographer of Aurelian’ gives the right explanation
of their diffidence, namely that the Senate knew very well that
the soldiers did not take kindly to an emperor chosen by itself.
But though the choice of Tacitus may be fairly cited to show the
constitutional position of the Senate®, it would be illogical to
ignore the evidence that choice provides of the army’s right to have
a say in the matter. From the beginning, the military basis of the
imperial power was only partly hidden by the civilian forms of the
^ Herodian vii, lo, 5 sqq. ® Herodian viii, 6, 1 with 7, 4.
® Constantin. Porphyr. De caeremmiu, i, 92, p. 424, 7 sq. (Bonn).
^ Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxv, 2. ® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxi, 3.
® Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxx.v, g sqq. ’ S.H.A. Aurel. 40, 3.
® So O. Th. Schulz, Vom Prinzipat %um Dormnat, pp. 145 sqq.
X, IV] THE PLACE OF THE ARMY 369
constitution of the Principate. At his accession, Nero could refer
both to the auctoritas fatrum and to the consensus and on
coins of Vitellius and Vespasian mention of the consensus militum
also appears^. Perhaps we should not see in this the assertion of
a right; but it is clear from the coins of the third century that the
emperors then thought of election by the army as a necessary legal
preliminary to their assumption of office. Leaving out of con-
sideration the fact that fides or concordia militum or exenitus is re-
ferred to over and over again, it is noteworthy that soldiers are
depicted as present when Severus Alexander receives the orb from
Juppiter or when Gordian is invested by Roma®. Finally, it is
a soldier who proffers the orb for though we may see in the
‘soldier’ the god Mars, the god is only a symbol for the army®. It
is significant for the election of Tacitus that this type first appears
on one of his coins ; while another shows his coronation by
Mars®, although on this the genius of the Senate re-appears, after
having been absent since the time of Valerian’. That man was
legally emperor who had been elected either by the Senate or the
army and then recognized by the other partner. But the words
used by Eutropius to describe the election of Claudius give the
best picture of the reality : ‘ a militibus electus, a senatu appellatus
Augustus®.’ Decius, like Vespasian, in spite of the deference
which he otherwise paid to the Senate, dated his reign from the
day of his proclamation by the army, thus admitting its right to
share in his elevation®. External events, too, decreased the
importance of recognition by the Senate. Postumus and other
separatist emperors, who, despite all their claims to the whole
Empire, never were so recognized in Rome^®, ruled with no less
actual authority for all that. The unsuccessful rival was hostis or,
by official usage after Constantine I at the latest, tyrannus^^\ but
the history of the so-called ‘thirty tyrants’ shows with distressing
clarity what a misuse of the right of election might bring about.
Aurelius Victor associates the end of the Senate’s right of election
^ Tacitus, Ann. xiii, 4. ^ Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, l, 19351 P- 44 i?-
® Cohen® iv, p. 421, no. 190; cf. p. 482, nos. 9 sqq.-, v, p. 48, no. 269;
p. 51, no. 284.
* M.-S. V, ii, p. 49, no. 310; p. 117, no. 909.
® So Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 119.
« M.-S. V, i, p. 339, no. 127; p. 337, no. 109.
’ Alfoldi, op. cit. p. 17. ® Eutropius ix, ii, i.
® Cf. Schulz, op. cit. p. 271 and pp. 0 . 1 $ sqq. Wittig, P.W. s.v. Messius
(9) Decius, col. 1 254 sq.
So rightly O. Th. Schulz, op. cit. pp. 98 sqq.
Cf. Cod. Theod. xv, 14, i ry.
370 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
with the death of Probus and Cams’ election^, Carus seems to
have contented himself with an announcement of his election
without any formal request for confirmation by the Senate (see
above, p. 32.1). This does not mean that the announcement might
not be received with acclamation signifying consent; but any
initiative on the part of the Senate was done away for good. A
formal right to share in the election, often not unlike that of the
People, must have survived. Only on some such hypothesis can
we explain the first fifth-century utterance of a newly-elected
emperor that has survived in his own words ; here the army and the
Senate (by now a totally changed body) are named as electors, but
the greatest emphasis is laid upon the divine favour. When
Marcianus announced his assumption of office to Pope Leo I,
he said he had come to it ‘ by God’s Providence and the choice of
the Senate and the army^.’
Although the idea that the ruler was elective survived into
the days of the autocracy ‘by the grace of God,’ an idea that the
succession might be passed on to the emperor’s heirs was also
current from the very first®. Septimius Severus, by means of
his fictitious adoption, endeavoured to make his sons heirs in a
dynastic succession (see above, p. 12), while he singled out
his elder son by creating him Caesar and Princeps luventutis
and having him named imperator destinatus\ A year later, Caracalla
became Augustus and Geta became Caesar. This public settle-
ment of the succession was designed to win support among the
populace, by familiarizing them with the idea of a dynasty; and
all the propaganda-value of the coinage and of Emperor-worship
was exploited to this end®. One success of the campaign may be
seen in the ever greater frequency of the words domus divina in
inscriptions®. The effect of legitimacy is shown by the succession
of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander and by the influence which
the princesses of the imperial house, from Julia Domna to Julia
Mamaea, could acquire. Even the ephemeral reign of the first
two Gordians was long enough to arouse sentiments favourable
1 Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxvii, 5.
2 Ep. Leonis 73 = Migne, Patr. Lat. uv, p. 900. — Mansi, Csnciliorum
Collection VI, 93 b; cf. the similar utterance of Justin I in ep. Hormisdae 41 . —
A. Thiel, Epistolae Roman, pontificum, 1868, p. 830 = Mansi, op. tit. vm,
434 A. ® See vol. X, p. 151 ; vol. xi, pp. 410, 41 5.
* The evidence is collected in E. Kornemann, Doppelprinzipat und
Rekhsteilmg tm Imperium Romanum, p. 86.
® J. Vogt, Die Alexandrinuchen Mim%en, i, p. 166 sq.
® R. Cagnat, Cours d’ epig^aphie latine'^, p. 168. Rostovtzeff, op. tit.
p. 598, n. 31.
X, IV] DYNASTIC SUCCESSION 371
to Gordian III as the legitimate heir^. It thus became the rule
for the sons of the emperor to be created Caesar and finally
Augustus. There was in general no real co-regency, although
all the imperial honours, almost always including even the
pontificate since Philip and his son®, were conferred upon the
Junior, thus creating a kind of fictitious co-regency or rather
partnership. This practice seemed to secure the succession ; this
combination of dynastic successor with partner was intended to
ensure that, when the Augustus-father died, the Augustus-son
should pass automatically to the throne®. Though, indeed, stern
reality often refuted this doctrine. The idea that membership of
the imperial family gave a man some claim to the throne induced
Florian to put himself forward as Augustus after the death of
his step-brother Tacitus, and he was recognized even though his
predecessor had declined, in accordance with the older usage, to
nominate his successor; and this holds good even if we doubt the
truth of Tacitus’ solemn renunciation in favour of a free election
by the Senate*.
The idea of a division of the Empire appears once during the
joint rule of the hostile brothers Caracalla and Geta (p. 43) and
it might appear that a necessary connection between dual rule and
such division should be presumed®. But the idea of the unity of the
Empire was too strong, even in this case of bitter enmity®; and
there was in fact no division when circumstances necessitated the
separate action of the co-rulers in the East and the West, as with
Valerian and Gallienus or Carus and Carinus’’. What this does
show is that it might be necessary, both for the safety of the Empire
and of the emperors personally, to mark out separate spheres
of activity, while maintaining without limitation the Augustus-
father ’s authority over the whole. This was a precedent that
could be used by Diocletian in his re-organization of the Empire,
especially in the form devised by Carus®, when he left Carinus
behind as Caesar in the West with extended powers which
approached joint-sovereignty. But there was still a difference
between Augustus and Caesar; and there was thus no question
of a division of the Empire.
1 Herodian vii, 10, 6. ® Schulz, op. cit. p. 258.
® Kornemann, op. cit. p. 92. E. Stein, Geschichte des spatrSmischen
Reiches, i, p. 48.
^ S.H.A. Trtf. 14, I. * Cf. Kornemann, op. cit. pp. 88 sqq.
® V. Ehrenberg, Deutsche Lit. Zeitung, 1^31, p. 559 -
Kornemann, op. cit. p. 102 for Valerian-Gallienus, whereas in the
case of Carus-Carinus (p. 109) he speaks of division of the Empire,
® Kornemann, op. cit. p. 108.
372
THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE
V. EMPEROR AND SENATE
[chap.
The survival of the Senate’s constitutional share in electing
the emperor was matched by the continuance of its right to judge
the deeds of the dead Augustus and so decide the consecration of
divm. But Septimius Severus first told the army of his in-
tention to deify Gommodus and then left the Senate to bring it to
pass^, while the Senate itself deified Gallienus in deference to the
will of Claudius, but against its own convictions^. This function
of the Senate, which belongs to the original form of the Principate,
was thus only exercised, in fact and possibly in law, at the instance
of the emperor and its significance was thus seriously diminished^.
Initiative declined into co-operation whereby the traditional respect
still felt for the patres was brought in to add honour to the dead
emperor. Thus the principle, that no deification could take place
without the Senate’s approval^, could remain unchallenged, while
the idea of the power of the emperor to command this action could
arise side by side with it®. Even if we admit that the Senate, in
passing judgment on a dead emperor, was using the power of
making laws which it had acquired®, we must be cautious in our
use of this fact when estimating its constitutional position. For,
in legislation, the Senate was gradually being reduced to the
position of an imperial publicity department.
The jurists ever more frequently quote the imperial oratio
instead of the senatus consultum which was founded on it'^; and
this must mean that the former was adopted without discussion
or amendment. The force of law which the imperial constilutiones
were recognized to have® tended further to limit senatorial legis-
lation. But for measures introducing some radical change, later to
be known as leges generates^ the more solemn form of the senatus
consultum was retained, even as late as the fifth century®. Moreover,
the emperors almost managed to turn the old rule that it was
for the Senate, as representing the People, to give dispensation
from the laws, into an exception^® ; and the axiom that ‘ the princeps
is freed from the laws^^’ is definite proof of this. The emperor
1 S.H.A. Sev. r i, 4; Dio lxxv, 7, 4 sq.-, Schulz, op. ck. p. 36 sq.
^ Aurelius Victor, Cues, xxxiii, 27; Schulz, op ■•t. p. 93.
® Mommsen, op. ck. n®, p. 886.
^ Tertullian, Jpol. 5. ® Cf. S.H.A. Op. Macr. 6, 8.
® O’Brien Moore, P.W. s.v. Senatus, Suppl. vi, col. 779.
’ Cf. vol. XI, p. 420; O. Karlowa, Rom. Rechtsgeschichte, 1, p. 643 sq.-,
for this form of citation in imperial rescripts cf. Cod. Just, v, 71, 9.
® Dig. i, 4, I with I, 2, 2, 12. ® Cod. Just. I, 14, 3.
“ Mommsen, op. ck. ii®, p. 884. Dig. i, 3, 31 (Ulpian).
THE POSITION OF THE SENATE
X, V]
373
could justify himself by appeal to the kx de impem\ a fact which
reveals the legal basis from which the emperor could at any time
undermine the surviving rights of the Senate. Thus he could him-
self grant privileges which had formerly needed to be confirmed
by a dispensation from the Senate®, though that did not prevent
him from declaring himself bound, of his own free will, by the
relevant laws in a civil case (see above, p. 68). We have also
seen (p. 65) how the Senate lost importance, from the time of
Severus Alexander onwards, in the administration of the laws
affecting the collegia. Formally the granting of pardons and
quashing of undetermined cases were prerogatives of the Senate;
but in fact and even by law the former right was exercised by the
emperor. Co-operation of emperor and Senate, whereby the Senate
probably acted on the emperor’s suggestion, still existed under
Pertinax® and was known to Ulpian*, although in a later work he
speaks of the princeps only®; the emperor’s sovereignty in such
cases was fully admitted by the reign of Caracalla®. The judicial
competence of the Senate continually lost importance in face
of imperial competition. Even the right of the Senate to be
sole judge of its own members in criminal cases, legally secured
under Septimius Severus, was precarious (vol. xi, p. 422), since
even Severus did not consider himself bound to respect it’. But
the emperors continued to send cases to the Senate for trial; and
even after Diocletian the Senate still pronounced judgment, when
thus invited to do so®.
Turning to financial matters, the independent importance of
the senatorial aerarium as a separate institution was already so re-
duced (vol. XI, p. 423) that according to Dio the emperor’s power
over it was as unlimited as over the fiscus^. But as late as 204
the Senate voted the funds for the Secular Games and in spite
of the curtailing of its right, the aerarium lasted until it became a
municipal instead of a State treasury^. It is very uncertain how
far, if at all, the continued minting of bronze coins with the Senate’s
1 Cod. Just. VI, 23, 3; cf. above, p. D. McFayden, ‘Rise of the
Princeps’ Jurisdiction,’ Washington Univ. Stud, x, 1923, p. 7.62 sq.
2 Dig. I, 3, 31.
® Dessau 1127 with S.H.A. Pert. 6, 8.
* Dig. Ill, I, I, 10. ® Dig. XI.VIII, 23, 2.
® Cod. Just. IX, 51, i; cf. 51, 7 (Philip the Arabian).
’’ Dio Lxxiv, 2, I sq.', Herodian ii, 14, 3 sq.
® Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 125; Stein, op. cit. i, p. 52.
® Dio Liii, 22, 3ry. C.I.L. vi, 32326, 29.
Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 1013- Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen V srwaltungs-
beamten^jp. iq. O’Brien Moore, sp. col. 791.
374 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
mark, S.C., denotes a survival of the independent aerarium^.
On the coins attributed to the interregnum after Aurelian’s
death S.C. may only mean that the Senate remembered its
ancient rights in exceptional circumstances. But it is significant
that, after the minting of such coins ceased under Claudius II
and (in spite of larger striking of money) under Aurelian (see
above, p. 307), there was no resumption of it even under Tacitus
and only a partial one under Florian (see above, p. 311). The
bronze coins of Postumus with the Senate’s mark have nothing
to do with its rights of minting, and rather express the claim to
a legitimate title to the whole Empire, including Rome and its
Senate^; this is true also of types of coin, over which the Senate
never shared control, where the legend appears as a peculiar sign
of legitimacy^.
The right of the Senate to appoint the Roman magistrates was
so whittled away by th.^ princeps’ nomination and commendation
that little remained of it; and in the third century the appointment
to all offices in the capital was attributed to the emperor®. Of
these offices, the consulate, the praetorship and the quaestorship
survived, and there were always plenty of men ready to undertake
the duties, in spite of the demands which they made on their
holders’ private fortunes, so long as important posts in the
administration of the Empire were filled by ex-consuls and ex-
praetors. In many ways the activity of the Senate seems to have
been that of a municipal council, as when Aurelian charged it
with the rebuilding of the City walls®; and the organization of
defence against the Alemannic invasion about 260'^ signifies little
more from a constitutional point of view. None the less, the Senate
had a prestige founded not only on the splendid traditions of
several centuries, but also on its close connection with Rome. In
comparison with the idea, noticeable as early as the first days of
Commodus, that Rome was where the emperor was®, the con-
ception of Rome as the seat of the emperor was not less wide-
spread®. However much, in a State which had greatly advanced
^ W. Kubitschek, P.W. s.v. Aerarium, col. 670.
® So doubtfully P. H. Webb in M.-S. v, i, p. 361; for another view
Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, xlix, 1034, P. Qi.
® M.-S. V, ii, p. 332 sq.
* M.-S. V, i, p. 320; Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, l, X935, p. 15, n. i.
® Dig. XLii, I, 57 (Ulpian); xi-vra, 14, i (Modestinus) ; cf. Dio lii,
20, 3; Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 928.
® S.H.A. jlurel. 2i, 9; L. Homo, Regne de Pempereur Jurelien, p. 221 sq.
’ Zosimus I, 37, 2. ® Herodian i, 6, 5; cf. vii, 6, 2.
® Herodian n, 10, 9.
X, V] THE SENATE AND THE CAPITAL 375
towards civic equalization, the emperor might become the
personification of the Empire, and the political significance of
Rome and its Senate fall into decay, Rome’s splendour as the
capital of the wmrld could not be dimmed. In spite of political
set-backs and of the change in the Senate’s personnel, tradition
was not forgotten, and as the scanty historical writings that
have survived indicate, the Senate continued to claim its share
in this splendour. A coin-type of Tacitus which depicts the
emperor offering the orb to Roma^ may indicate a desire to
counteract by propaganda a threatened disappearance of the
significance of Rome; politically speaking, the type soon proved to
be no more than a pious hope. But the tradition was so strongly
rooted that it was vigorous enough to survive the removal of the
emperor from Rome and the foundation of a second Senate in the
new imperial city in the East. It was, indeed, in making a Senate
out of the municipal council of Constantinople that the emperors of
the unconcealed autocracy showed their respect for this tradition.
Thus the Senate, as an imperial assembly with the remains of its
privileges, became part of the State in its final transformation.
The composition of the Senate, which the emperors controlled
by admitting the sons of senators to the magistracy and also by
means of the adlectio (vol. xr, p. 419), had altered, since the reign
of Septimius Severus, to the disadvantage of the Italian element,
which till then had had a small majority^. Italians now occupied
hardly more than a third of the places and many of them had
only recently become members at all. Apart from Africa, the
birthplace of Severus, it was mainly the Eastern provinces,
especially Asia Minor and Syria, that provided the newcomers;
even Egypt contributed its representatives for the first time®.
They were mostly sprung from the provincial aristocracy first
receiving equestrian rank. Only by degrees were men admitted
from other classes, and those generally by way of advancement
in the army. That there was a change of personnel in favour of
Italians under Severus Alexander cannot be proved. But the
decline in the number of senators from the Western provinces,
Gaul and Spain, is remarkable, and also the fact that so few are
known to have come from the Danubian provinces; and this in
spite of the increasing importance, and, ultimately, domination,
of the Pannonians, though the latter only became really marked
at a time when senators were excluded from those military offices
^ M.-S. V, i, p. 339, no. 126; see Volume of Plates v, 238,1-.
® Cf. P. Lambredits, La composition du sinat remain de Septime Severe
d DiocUtien, pp. 79 sqci- ® Dio nxxvii, 5, 5 (p. 360 Boissevain).
THE END OE THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
(see p. 377 sq) that appealed so strongly to the martial nature
of the Illyrians. Men from the provinces were seldom allowed
to become patricians. On the other hand, although Italian
patricians were preferred as consuls, they were mostly excluded
from influential posts in the imperial administration. In spite
of the many newcomers, the emperors could never completely
carry out their intention of suppressing opposition, although
they were to some extent successful. The reason for this lies
in the traditional influence of the Italian senators, which became
all the stronger as the obligation to reside in Rome, which had
already been but lightly enforced, was less and less observed^.
The growing preference shown for the equites was a more efl^ective
weapon. A fusion of classes was prepared by the approximation
of the rank of many equestrian offices to that of the senators, by
the ever increasing inclusion of equites in the Senate, and by the
abandonment of the rule that Praetorian Prefects in office might
not be senators. The fusion was complete when it was admitted
that the administrative service of the Empire could only be staffed
by imperial officers. The senators were still distinguished by the
title of clarissimus and they ranked first In the Empire after the
emperor and his family, while the Caesars from Geta onwards bore
the special title of nobilissmus. The equites were never given a
special tide as such. But they could achieve, in the imperial service,
the successive ranks of vir egregius, vir perfectissimus and vir
eminentissimus\ and the last was finally reserved for Praetorian
Prefects (see above, p. 6 1 )^.
VI. CHANGES IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF
THE EMPIRE AND IN THE ARMY
The attempt to find more and more officials and officers in the
class of equites becomes marked under Septimius Severus.
Following the precedent of Egypt an equestrian prefect is
appointed to govern the new province of Mesopotamia and, at
the same time, the commanders of the two legions stationed there,
I and III Parthica, as well as of II Parthica (then in garrison
in Italy), became equestrian prefects (see above, p. 24). From
this time on, equestrian procurators are frequently appointed
deputies of the governor not only in imperial but also in sena-
torial provinces®. Such deputy governors in senatorial provinces,
^ !■> Ij 22, 6 (Paul). 2 Hirschfeld, Kleine Schriften, p. 654-
® The references for this and for what follows are collected in C. W.
Keyes, The Rise of the Equites in the Third Century of the Roman Empire,
pp. 1 sqq., and in LambrechtSj Op. «/. pp. 96 sqq.
X, VI] THE IN ADMINISTRATION 377
apart perhaps from Timesitheus in Asia (see above, p. 85), were
still only made to meet some temporary emergency as when a pro-
consul died in office. But the intention by this device to supersede,
for political reasons, senators by equites in the imperial provinces is
plain ; and it was carried out by uniting two functions in the hands
oi tldQ procurator vice praesidis. (Praeses in this context is a
general name for governor^.) Under Gallienus, the ‘independent
vicariate’ appears^, and the agens vices praesidis, who held no
other office, could act as governor and finally be spoken of simply
the praeses^. But not all senatorial governorships were thus
transformed, and not all under Gallienus ; the incomplete sources
that we have do not allow a precise chronology. The traditional
system was probably altered in Numidia only after 268, in Pontus
et Bithynia certainly after 269, when a senator was still governor,
and at latest in 279. In Pannonia Inferior, the change made by
Gallienus was annulled and a senator appointed before 283. In
Britain, Hispania Tarraconensis, Moesia Inferior and Syria Coele,
the governors never ceased to be senators. Only in Baetica, among
the senatorial provinces, do we hear, under Florian or Probus, of
a v(ir) p{erjectissimus') a{gens) v(ices) p(raesidis'). We do not know
whether the other provinces administered by ex-praetors were
treated in the same way; but there is some probability that they
were, in so far, that is, as the threatened situation of the province
makes the presence of troops likely in troublous times. The
provinces administered by consulars, Asia and Africa, still had
their senatorial proconsuls; but it is uncertain whether they were
appointed by sortitio^ or by the emperor’s direct nomination®.
These developments are connected with the exclusion of
senators from military command by Gallienus. Aurelius Victor
tells us® that this emperor forbade senators to serve in the army
or have access to it, in order to prevent the imperium from falling
into the hands of the high aristocracy. In fact, since the sole rule
of Gallienus the legatus legionis disappears ; and in his place is the
praefectus legionis, at first with the suffix agens vices legati, though
this hardly serves to disguise the definitive change. The title of
egregius marks the new commanders as equites. Probably centurions
qualified for appointment by twice achieving the rank of primus
pilus, thus becoming, so to speak, chief of staff in their legion. At
^ Dig. 1,1%, 1.
® von Domaszewski, Rhein. Mus. LViii, 1903, p. 228.
® Cf. Hirschfeld, Die kaiser lichen Ferwaltungsheamten^, pp. 385 sqq.
^ Lambrechts, op. cit. p. 103. ® O’Brien Moore, op. cit. col. 795,
* Aurelius Victor, C«ei. xxxur, 34. : i T ■
378 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap.
the same time, as a matter of course, the senatorial tribuni laticlavii
also disappear. The way to the highest command was now open
to the man who could rise frorn the ranks. Aurelius Victor^
thought that the senators might have recovered their position
under Tacitus, in view of the accommodating disposition of the
army . But no known attempt was made, and the situation remained
as it had been under Gallienus. This had the further result
that in the provinces governed by equites where there was an
army, civil and military authority was concentrated in one man^s
hands, whereas in the imperial provinces, which were still
governed by senators, there was of necessity a division of powers.
It seems that a unified command was not necessarily created
where more than one legion was stationed. The men who were
given a general command in times of crisis were called fraepositi
or duces^\ but their title was not officially fixed. Dux does not yet
indicate a man in the same position as the later dux lmitum, tven
though that title certainly looks back to earlier precedents.
Another military reform of Gallienus may be connected with
his anxiety to strengthen his own position as emperor, namely the
institution of the protectores^. The title of protector lateris divini
was at first only conferred on high officers^. It is also doubtful
whether under Gallienus centurions and cavalry decurions, who
ranked with them, could become protectores as well as legionary
praefects and tribunes of the troops centred at Rome. The duties
of the protectores lay in the imperial headquarters, for the most
part in the immediate neighbourhood of the emperor’s person
(they are the protectores domestici of later times). Others served
with the Praetorian Prefects though they were later dispatched
to special service with the troops in the provinces. Their corps
became a kind of staff-college and membership of it opened the
way to greater things. Many were Illyrians, as we should expect
in view of the composition of the army®. Whether or not the
comitatus of the Germanic tribes provided the model for the
system is disputed®. But the attempt was made to attach the
protectores to the emperor by a special kind of personal loyalty.
Otherwise, the organization of the army remained unchanged
^ Caes. XXXVII, 6.
® Cf. Ritterling, P.W. s.v. Legio, col. 1340, 1. 361^.; O. Seeck, P.W.
s.v. Dux, col. 1869.
® Dessau 2785, 4002, 5695, 9204.
^ R. Grosse, Rjom. Militargeschichte, p. 13; Stein, op. cit. i, pp. 81 sqq.
® Cf. Stein, op. cit. i, p. 80 sq.
® For recent support of this view see A. Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg,
Die Welt als Geschichte, i, 1935, p. 82 •fy- 5 see, however, above, p. 219.
X, vi] THE PROTECTORES-, MILITARY CHANGES 379
until the middle of the third century. Provincialization advanced
(vol. XI, p. 31 1). The troops gradually took root, as it were, in
the regions where they were stationed, until they were eventually
turned into frontier settlers under an hereditary obligation to
serve in the army. This might lead to difficulties when they were
required to fight on battlefields far from home (see above, p. 70).
Yet, while wars in and outside the Empire were never-ending, a
multitude of separate detachments had to be moulded together
to form a single mobile fighting force. It is possible that some-
times even detachments appeared as full legions, only to be
merged in the mother-legion in the frontier provinces if they
were not broken up for other reasons The cavalry was increased
to meet the mobility and new tactics of the enemy, especially
the Persians, by the new organization of mounted auxilia and the
strengthening of the cavalry attached to the legions. In this, as
in other things, Gallienus was the innovator^. Legionary cavalry
were often especially used as vexillationes\ this is suggested by
the later use of the word to denote a cavalry regiment. From
the time of Gallienus onwards, the independent cavalry general
like Aureolus and Aurelian stood highest in prestige; and the
latter, when he became emperor, seems to have encouraged this
development and for tactical purposes to have separated the
legionary cavalry as promoti from the legion itself, although even
under Diocletian they continued to be united for administrative
purposes®. Peoples not subject to the Empire, especially the
Germanic races, had been received into the army, at first as
irregular auxiliaries. But from the reign of Claudius II onwards
German prisoners of war were included in the regular auxilia^.,
an anticipation of the recruitment of free Germans which was later
extensively practised especially under Constantine.
This increasing tendency to centralize imperial administration
in the hands of the emperor led to a development and re-
organization of the machinery of the government devised under
the Principate ®. The Praetorian Prefect constantly appeared as the
chief agent of the change®. His office, generally shared with a col-
league, was usually the culmination of an equestrian career; but
^ Ritterling, op. :it. col. 1338.
® Cedrenus i, p. 454 (Bonn); cf. L. Wickert, P.W. s.v. Licinius (84),
col. 364. Alfoldi, Zeitschr. /. Num. xxxvn, 1927, pp. 128 sqq.-, see also
p. 216x7. ® Cf. Stein, op. cii. i, p. 92, n, i.
* Cf. M. Bang, Die Germanen im ram. Dienst, p. 61 sq.-, Graf Schenk
von Stauffenberg, op. cit. p. 79 sq. ® Vol. xi, chap, x, vii.
® Cf Stein, op. cit. i, pp. 53 sqq.
380 Tm END OF THE PRINCIPATE^^^^^^^^^^
from the time of Severus Alexander its holders were ea officio senators
(see above, p. 61). These Prefects commanded the Praetorian
Guard and the troops garrisoned in Italy; as members of the im-
perial staff, they controlled recruiting and armament; they were
the officers responsible for the commissariat; and they thus had a
share in the collection of the special contribution which had become
necessary for this purpose. As they stood in a peculiar sense in
the emperor’s service, special duties could be laid on them. Their
jurisdiction, as representatives of the emperor, often in a sense
competed with his, since appeals could be addressed to them, so
that in practice they often were an ultimate court. Appeals to
the emperor were still possible; but the right was disputed
and they were forbidden by Constantine^, The Prefects were
criminal judges for the whole of Italy with the exception of
the area within a hundred miles of Rome, which was subject to
the City Prefect, and of persons who were exempted from the
jurisdiction of the provincial governors. Their right to condemn
prisoners to deforiatio proves most clearly that they represented
the emperor^. To help them carry out their constantly increasing
duties, the emperor appointed deputies for them, vice praefectorum
praetorio, later vicarii, at first probably with roving commissions,
but in particular cases with fixed areas to look after The Prefects
also had, as representing the sovereign, a general oversight over
the State post and the political and financial mechanism of
government^. From the reign of Maximinus Thrax onwards
(see above, p, 74), they had the right to publish ordinances
binding on everyone, so long as they did not modify existing laws;
and although this was not quite the same as a secondary right to
make laws®, it yet gave them power to issue general instructions
that must be obeyed. Finally, they were the most important
members of the permanent imperial consilium, which advised the
emperor in his legal decisions. It is not surprising that this
diversity of duties, not to mention the danger likely to arise from
putting so much power in one man’s hands, caused the office to
be divided between colleagues; and that, besides soldiers, we find
lawyers and experts in administration being appointed to this post.
In these troublous times, much was demanded of the State
finances. But the economic system was breaking down largely
under the pressure of taxation, and money could only be raised by
1 Dig. I, II, I, i; Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 974.
® Dig. XXXII, I, I, 4 (Ulpian); Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 973.
® Cf. Stein, op. cit. i, p. 55. ^ Mommsen, op. cit. ii®, p. 1120.
® So Stein, op. cit. i, p. 55.
X, VI] THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT 381
the most drastic methods. This process led to a more wide-
spread resort to compulsion and to an increase in unpaid services,
munera and liturgiae, which gives the impression that State-
socialism was developing; but for the details we must refer to the
chapter on economic history (chap, vii). The financial administra-
tion was radically altered when the Praetorian Prefect was made
responsible for the assessment and collection of the increasingly
numerous payments in kind destined for the support of the army
(th.& annona militaris)^ which circumstances made it necessary to
exact more and more often. With this responsibility, an important
part of the financial administration had come into the hands of
the Prefect^; and the change was made at the expense of the
chief financial officer of the State, the rationalis (vol. xi, p. 430),
who was responsible for the normal taxes and duties, administered
by his procurators and for the enterprises that belonged to the
jiscus such as mines, mints and factories. The rationalis also had
to meet competition in the shape of the office set up by Septimius
Severus to look after the res frivata (see above, p. 27 sql). The
income from this emperor’s private fortune was mostly spent
on public services. The res frivata was administered by a pro-
curator^ later magister, rei privatae^ who had in practice the same
privileges as the rationalis‘d. As a result of the frequent changes
of ruler, no distinction seems to have been made between the
emperor’s private lands and his crown lands, although the patri-
monium existing before Severus as crown property in a special
sense and administered separately was only later merged into
the res privata. Procurators of the res privata were active in
the different regions of Italy and in the provinces; and in some
cases they represented the interests of the patrimonium as well®.
The Finance Minister and the Minister of imperial domains, both
ultimately viri perfectissimi, had perhaps become, next to the
emperor, persons to whom appeals could be addressed in trials
on matters falling within their sphere of duty. But as a natural
consequence of the fact that these duties had been originally en-
trusted to members of the imperial household, these officers always
ranked as court-officials, as is most clearly reflected in the name
given to their subordinates, palatini., after Diocletian.
The equestrian chiefs of the different departments of the
imperial cabinet^ had also taken the places of former members
of the emperor’s household (vol. xi, p. 427). Answers to
deputations from the Empire and to foreign ambassadors,
d Stein, op. cit. 1, p. 62. ® Dig. XLix, 14, 6, 1 (Ulpian).
® Dessau 1 330. ^ Hirschfeld, oj!>, oV. pp. 3101^^. Stein, op. oV, i,p. 57.
382 THE END OF THE PRINCIPATE [chap. X, vi
directions for the civil service, remained under the efistulis,
in whose department all official correspondence had earlier been
concentrated. The numerous private appeals to the emperor were
dealt with by the a libellis. The legal decisions to be delivered
by the sovereign himself were referred to the a cognitionibus.
Research on complicated legal problems and questions of cults
was the business of the a studiis. The activities of the a
memoria were the most loosely defined, but in general they were
concerned with the exercise of clemency and the bestowal of
favours by the emperor; and the officials of this department thus
became the most influential of all. They ranked with the most
highly-placed procurators and were perhaps distinguished by the
title of magister even before the reign of Diocletian (cf. p. 389)^.
In the reforms of Constantine, the a studiis disappeared as did the
a cognitionibus, whose duties were taken over by the a libellis. A
man always needed high attainments to hold one of these offices;
and they were purely civil. Civilians could also rise to other
procuratorships, usually starting as advocatus fisci, legal representa-
tive of the imperial treasuries. But most third-century procurators
were ex-soldiers who, from being officers, were singled out for
employment in the imperial administration.
The inferior staff of the officia, as the bureaux of the more
important departments of State were called, was often composed
of soldiers detailed for the purpose. This was the result of the
long-standing identification of civil and military powers and of
the progressive militarization of the whole State ; and the survival
of the titles which betray their military origin, even after the
separation of the civil and military administration, is significant^.
Militarization must have been almost complete when the officiales
could also be called milites, and their service, as indeed all official
service, could be known as militia^ so that a new name, militia
armata, had to be found for military service in order to dis-
tinguish it. It is true that there were also many clerks (exceptores)
and account keepers {tabularii) who had never been in the army.
But their profession was not yet promoted to be an office. They
followed it as a kind of trade; they were members of guilds
(scholae) which even before Diocletian were partly State-recognized
and attached to the several officia\ and they were paid direct by
those who claimed their services. In this practice we may see the
beginnings of that shifting of the cost or government on to the
subject which was later to lead to the system of sportulae^.
1 Hirschfeld, op. cit. p. 330, n. 3.
^ Boak, P.W. s.v. Officium, col. 2047.
® Stein, op. cit. 1, p. 69.
CHAPTER XI
THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN
I. THE SAFEGUARDING OF THE IMPERIAL THRONE-
THE SUCCESSION AND CEREMONIAL
D iocletian had entered upon rule over a State that was,
in general, again unified within and made safe without by
the military prowess of his Illyrian predecessors. As one who had
watched with open eyes the threatened collapse and the recovery,
he came to the throne when he was of ripe years and we may
assume that he had, before he began to rule, thought over the
ways and means to become master for good of that critical situation.
This need not imply that he must have come to power with a plan
of re-organization already fully worked out, but he may have had,
in connection with tendencies which had become apparent
earlier, a goal before his eyes, which, in the last resort, envisaged
the securing of the position of emperor as the firmest support of
the unity of the Empire. The experiences of the last decades had
shown, more clearly than ever, that the emperor must be, so to
say, present everywhere at once and immortaF, if all the duties
connected with the maintenance of the State were to be performed.
In the first place, the imperial power had to be protected from the
interference of the armies, carried out by means of usurpations.
But, as almost all experience had shown that the victory of a
general in the absence of the emperor led to the elevation of the
victor to the throne, this must be guarded against. For this
reason, Maximian was sent as Caesar to the West to solve
particularly pressing problems. With the title of Caesar, the
reversion of the succession was given to him, but not yet the
co-regency that was conferred on him with the title of Augustus^.
But even then the leadership of the whole remained with the
Senior Augustus, who still set himself apart, as Jovius, from
^ Cf. L. Ranke, Weltgsschuhte, iii, p. 471; K. Stade, Der Politiker
Diokletian, p. 35.
® Cf. W. Ensslin, P.W. s,v. Maximianus (i) Herculius, cols. 2489 sqq.-,
E. Kornemann, Doppelprin^pat und Reichsteilung tm Imperium RoTnanum,
P- ” 4 ^f
384 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
Maximian as Herculius^. Pressing new problems and, at the
same time, anxiety about the succession, led to the further step of
the appointment of two Caesars as helpers and chosen successors :
and this body of four emperors, this Tetrarchy (see above,
p. 328 jy.), was to remain, according to Diocletian’s plan, the
constitutional practice for the future, as Lactantius puts it: ‘ut
duo sint in re publica maiores, qui summam rerum teneant, item
duo minores, qui sint adiumento^.’
Thus two pairs of rulers were to fulfil the vast task of defending
the State and of administering it, wherein the Caesars were to
have a full share of the imperial honours, but were to be a step
lower in rank by comparison with the Augusti and, at the same
time, the authority of the ‘senior Augustus’ was to guarantee
unified conduct of affairs^; for in him alone was vested the power
of legislation for the whole Empire^, with a supreme right of
supervision, for instance over the administration of finance®, and
certainly also the final decision in the appointment of successors.
As Diocletian had no male heirs of his body, it was not difficult
for him to fall back upon the basic principle of the choice of the
best man. That these ‘best men,’ in the pressing circumstances
of his times, must be, before all else, distinguished soldiers, may
have been intended to flatter the ambition of the generals, for
whom, through this method of choosing, a legal expectation of the
very highest position in the Empire seemed to be reserved. But
in this the initiative remained with the emperor alone. Army
and Senate were to play no part, even though we see that the
appointment to the position of Caesar took place before the
assembled soldiery® and even if we must assume that the customary
acclamation, the empty shell of an earlier right, followed on an
imperial message to the Senate. The adoption of the Caesars by
the Augusti, who appeared as fratres, connected up with the rules
for the succession of the Antonine period, and thus created an
artificial imperial family. It also raised, at the same time and
in a special sense, the designated candidates for the succession
into the sphere of the superhuman that attached to the position
of emperor.
^ Stade {op. cit. p. 36) would not admit that this expresses the superiority of
the JoviuSjbuthis objection that the later senior Augustus Constantius became
by adoption Herculius is not decisive, for no such consequences were thought
of when these names were chosen. ® de mart. pers. 18,5.
* Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 36, cuius nutu omnia gerebantur.
* Stade, op. cit. p. $osq. ® Eusebius, Fita Constant, i, 14, I.
® Lactantius, de mart. pers. 19, i sqq.
XI, I] AUGUST! AND CAESARS 385
The assignment to them of territorially defined areas of admini-
stration (see above, p. 329), under the superior guidance of the
Augusti, was designed to prepare the Caesars for their career
as rulers. The right to intervene still rested with the Augusti,
as Diocletian had already intervened earlier in the West (see
p. 328)^ and, as occasion arose, the Caesar was employed in the
immediate area ruled by his Augustus (see p. 336). The Caesar,
chosen with the best knowledge and sense of responsibility and his
capacity proved under the observation of his Augustus, was to
succeed him automatically. When Diocletian then decided to ab-
dicate along with Maximian (see p. 340), he seems to have made,
by his rules for the succession, the abdication of the Augusti in
some sense obligatory also on his successors in order to prevent
the holder of the highest position in the State from growing too
old in office. For this idea, the plan of abdication of Galerius® is
evidence, while we may recognize a connection with the rest of
Diocletian’s dispensation in the fact that this same Galerius,
without violating the scheme of Diocletian’s Tetrarchy, could
recognize Constantine as Caesar (see p. 344), but, in his refusal
to accept Maxentius, might conceal his personal dislike for him
behind the constitutional doctrine that he was legally unable to
create three Caesars®. But it is not likely that Diocletian should
have fixed the term of abdication at the twentieth year after a
man’s elevation to the position of Caesar^. The new arrangement
passed over, at the first change of rulers, the natural heirs of
Maximian and of Constantius. Diocletian’s personal dislike of
hereditary dynastic claims may have helped to bring this about.
But Galerius’ readiness to give way in the case of Constantine
still leaves the conclusion possible that heirs of the body were not
in principle excluded. At the first opportunity an attempt to
form a dynasty met with widespread support; here, indeed, was
a danger to the system of Diocletian, but its main principle, that
of a division of responsibilities, continued to operate even after
the later dynastic remodelling of the constitution.
The original division of responsibilities certainly took place
mainly with military ends in view, and thus it is understandable
that, at first, since each of the rulers held the supreme command
in his own area, none of them should have been tied down
^ Cf. Stade, op. cit. p. 50 sq.-, Ensslin, op. at cols. 2498 sqq.
2 Lactantius, de mart. pers. 20, 4; 35, 4-
® lb. 26, 4; cf, E. Stein, Geschkhte des spatrSm. Reiches, i, p. 100, n. I.
* So O. Seeck, Geschkhte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, i®, p. 36, with
J. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossenfi, p. 42 sq.
386 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
to a fixed capital. Even if, in the end, Trfeves and Milan by
the side of Aquileia, and also Sirmium and Nicomedia were
preferred as imperial headquarters, al! the same, the mobility of
the court was in principle maintained. If men had already,
earlier, as occasion arose, called the residence for the time
being of the emperor castra\ the imperial camp, as well as
palatium, the imperial palace, the former term, as stratofedon,
seems to have established itself more and more in the Greek-
speaking world® and simultaneously the court became th.t comi-
tatus^ the retinue®. Rome, it is true, remained the Empire’s
capital, with all the attendant privileges and expenditure for its
inhabitants, and the imposing ruins of the Baths of Diocletian
still proclaim that nothing was spared in the external embellish-
ment of the City^, while Roma aeterna still appears, even if more
rarely, in the legends on coins, though the palatium in Rome was
deserted. The consciousness that, in times not long past, the idea
that he who has Rome has the Empire was still powerful, may
have helped to produce the result that the City did not in any
sense become the preferred residence of the Augustus of the
West. At the same time, the influence which the Senate had ever
and again brought to bear was thus most readily set wholly aside.
Now it really became true that Rome was where the emperor
was. We may still, to be sure, read in a panegyric of the time,
written in connection with the meeting of the emperors in Milan
(p. 328), that sovereign Rome had gladly granted, by sending
the bright luminaries of her Senate to Milan, the semblance of her
majestic splendour to that city, so that the seat of the imperial
government seemed to be there, whither both emperors had
come®. But in this connection, we must not forget that it is said,
in another panegyric, that Rome herself would appear more
reverend (‘augustior’) if the emperors were present in the City®.
Emperor and court were now, for good and all, surrounded by
the ceremonial forms which, reaching far back in their origins,
at this time received the final shape that was to continue into
the future. The authority of the imperial ofifice was to be raised
into something inviolate and sacred and thereby to be secured
from attack. Without actually calling himself a god, Diocletian
Cf. O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Ferwaltungsheamten^, p. 313;
A. Alfoldi, Rom. Mitt, t, 1935, p. 4.6.
® See the evidence in Seeck, op, cit. p. 445, note to p. 22, 1 . 23.
® Cod. Just. VII, 67, I.
^ Chronographer of A.a. 354, in Mon. Germ. Auct. Ant. ix, p. 148, 2I sqq.
® Raneg. xi (in), 12, 2. ® Ih. x (ii), 13, 4.
XI, I] THE POSITION OF ROME 387
emphasized this unapproachable and superhuman quality of his
authority, not least, be it said, by the name Jovius, which necessarily
surrounded the person of the emperor with an especial aura of
sanctity. In this connection it is a matter of no importance
whether the adoration which was expected from the subject took
the traditional forms of the imperial cult, which saw a god in the
ruler of the world, or whether it was directed to the genius of the
emperors as the very genius of Juppiter and of Hercules working
in them (p. 330) or whether, finally, in the Jovius and Herculius
only the divinely-favoured agents, chosen by the gods to re-establish
the Roman Empire, were to be recognized and revered^. The
assumption by Diocletian of the name Jovius resulted not only
in fixing firmly and in a lasting form the Juppiter-like equipment
of the imperator^, but, in addition, it also, in the long run, allowed
the desired sanctification of the imperial power and of its holder
so firmly and completely to root itself that even the invasion
of a new religion could not dislodge the idea of his divine con-
secration. Here we may mention that, on occasion, in this period
the halo, the nimbus^ appears as the outward expression of the
inward glory of the divine illumination residing in the emperor’s
person®. In thus giving its final and obligatory form to court
ceremonial, and only in this, can be seen some justification for
the verdict of those authors^ who make Diocletian responsible for
the introduction of this ceremonial, the characteristic which marks
the fundamental division between the princeps and the autocratic
emperor. The fact that both contemporaries and men who lived
later saw parallels to this manifestation of developed autocracy in
Persia, cannot, it is true, be used, after what has been said earlier
(see above, pp. 361 ryy.), to prove that Diocletian took over these
arrangements directly from the court of the Sassanian kings, but
it suggests the presumption that, however many approxima-
tions were already present, the Oriental model influenced his
decision to create a fixed order of ceremonial (see p. 337
It would not be the only example in history of the victor taking
over something from the vanquished.
Cf. N. H. Baynes, J.R.S. xxv, 1935, p. 84.
^ Alfoldi, op. cit. p, 104.
® Ih. p. 144; Ensslin, ty. cit. col. 2499; K. Keyssner, P.W. s.v. Nimbus,
col. 622. Ih. col. 617 for the Nimbus in Sassania art.
Eutropius, IX, 26; Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 2-4; Ammian. Marc.
XV, 5, 18; Jerome, Chron. p. 216, lo sqq, (Helm).
® Alfoldi {Rom. Mitt, xtrx, 1934, pp. bsqq^ sees in the reference to
Persia no historical fact at all, but a literary commonplace in the representa-
tion of a tyrant.
388 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
The seclusion of the sacred person of the ruler is marked by
the greater difficulty of gaining admission to him, apparent in the
limitation of the adoratio to z strictly defined circle of persons, in
which we may see a precursor of the future higher classes of rank.
According to the Panegyrist, the adoratio took the form, at the
meeting of the Emperors at Milan, of ‘an act of adoration like
that performed in the holy of holies, which filled with wonder those
to whom the rank of their dignities gave the right of admission
to the rulers.’ What in this particular case brought the per-
foimance of this customary form of adoration (which was at once
a. duty and a coveted right) into some confusion, was the presence
of two Augusti, for which the regulations for the order of pre-
cedence at court provided, it would seem, no ruling^. It is worth
observing that proskynesis was demanded even from the blood-
relations of the emperors®. The tradition that Diocletian intro-
duced this ceremony may well contain a measure of truth so far
as it was he who prescribed the procedure which was followed
in the fourth century, namely, that of kneeling down and
kissing a corner of the imperial robe. The emperor seldom
showed himself in public; and his rare appearances became
festive occasions. The overloaded splendour of the dress and the
jewellery used as the expression of absolutist state then received
their firmly fixed fashion. The diadem alone was not worn by
Diocletian as a regular part of the insignia, if he ever wore it at all.
That was reserved for Constantine®, It is possible that, besides
regulating the court ceremonial, in which the admissionales were
employed (see p, 363), Diocletian also drew up new rules for the
other court servants and among them for the chamberlains whose
duties lay in the sacrum cubiculum, the cubicularii^. Yet such
hints as we possess for the development of the position of the
highest chamberlain, the a cubiculo, into that of praepositus sacri
cMculi point to Constantine as the innovator®. In any event,
there is no reason to ascribe to Diocletian the introduction of
eunuchs as chamberlains®.
1 Paneg. xi (in), ii, 1-3.
® Lactantius, de mart. pers. 1 8 , 9.
® [Aurelius Victor], Bpit xli, 14, caput omans perpetuo diademate.
* J. E. Dunlap, Vniv. Mich. Stud. Hum. Ser. xiv, 1924, p. 182.
® Cf. Stein, op. cit. p. 169, n. i.
® So Hug in P.W. Suppl, in. s.v. Eunuchen, col. 452.
XI, ii] THE COURT: CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION 389
II. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
The central administration remained in essentials unchanged.
The Praetorian Prefects, who were still two in number^, re-
tained their spheres of duty, except that the new taxation system
considerably increased their influence in the administration of
the State finances, and except that, through personal attendance on
the August! and the resultant absence from Rome, they lost the
immediate command of the Praetorian Guard, which Diocletian
finally degraded to being a garrison of Rome and of which he
reduced the numbers very greatly®. The frequent changes of
residence on the part of the emperors had been the cause of
making the personnel of the imperial chancery also, with its
archives, easily movable. From the boxes to hold the documents,
the scrinia, it seems that, under Diocletian, the designation
scrinia^ used for the separate departments of the chancery, arose®.
The heads of the departments were now certainly magistri.
They belonged to the circle of those who made up the imperial
consilium . There was also the permanent body of legal advisers
and those summoned to the council from time to time for other
affairs of State^. Besides the designation of the body of ad-
visers as consilia sacra, it seems that, as early as Diocletian, con-
sistorium also arose as a name for it, although the earliest evidence
of its use has been doubted®, because the advisers who were
members of the civil service were still called a consiliis sacris.
But it is not rare to find examples, even in the usages of official
speech, of a variation in such designations, until one of them
finally becomes the definitive form. In the career of a certain
C. Caelius Saturninus the position of a consiliis sacris is followed
by that of magister libellorum, that of magister studiorum (see p. 3 8 2)
and then that of vicarius a consiliis sacris^. The last seems to be the
name for the position of deputy for the absent, or over-burdened
Praetorian Prefect, who was also perhaps not learned in the law.
This vicarius might therefore count as the predecessor of the
quaestor sacri falatii of Constantine. It remains doubtful how far
he, at the same time, while deputixing for the Prefect, exercised
some kind of supervision over the whole of the imperial scrinia,
that is to say, a function of the later magister officiorum’’. The
1 Zosimus II, 32, 2; Dessau 8929, 8938.
2 lu&ct&ntm%demort.pers. 26, 35 R. Grosse, Rom. Militdrgeschkhte,p. 581^.
® So first in Cod. Theod. vi, 35, i (of a.d. 313)5 cf. Seeck, P.W. s.v.
Scrinium, col. 894. * Lactantius, de mort. pers. 11, 5 sq.
® Cod. Just. IX, 47, 125 Hirschfeld, op. cit. p. 342, n. i.
® Dessau 1214. ^ Cf. M. Besnier, Jdxst. Rsm. iv, p. 301.
390 OF DIOCLETIAN {chap.
jrumentariiy who acted as couriers in the service of the central
administration of the Empire and especially as secret police,
were abolished by Diocletian on account of deeply-rooted abuses^.
But, because, at least for the courier service, a substitute had to
be created it is possible that he replaced them by the agentes in
rebus'^, who, it is true, cannot be proved to have existed before 3 1 9®.
The central administration of the finances, controlled as before
(see above, p. 381) by the Finance Minister, the rationalis, ■md
the Minister of Domains, the magister ret summae privatae,
was so far extended that the rationales vicarii^ were instituted, in
connection with the regulations drawn up for the dioeceses which are
to be described below. It is probable that magister summarum
rationum also, who was the immediate subdirector in the ministry
of finance, now became the vicarius summae rei rationum^. That
the parallel arrangements for the res frivata^ which can be found
in the Notitia Dignitatum^ also date back to Diocletian, is indeed
very probable, but cannot be proved with certainty.
Diocletian’s reform of the provincial administration went far
deeper. The reform was intended to secure the position of the
emperor from being assailed by officials who lusted after power,
by a fundamental separation of civil and military authority and
by a substantial reduction in size of the provinces. The reform
had this problem to solve: how, in addition to the provision of
the means for the defence of the Empire and for the carrying on
of the internal administration, at the same time, to hold together,
by the creation of a body of civil servants controlled down to the
last detail, the heterogeneous elements in an Empire that was of
great territorial extent, so as to form a unified State; and how to
secure recognition for the imperial will which was the supreme
representation of that unity. On the other hand the reduction in
size of the provinces, and thus of the areas of jurisdiction, was
to the advantage of the subject, in that Diocletian at once insisted
on the regular exercise of their legal functions by the governors
in person, and only granted them the right to appoint other
iudges {indices) to represent them on occasions when they were
prevented by other official business from attending, and even then
not for all kinds of legal cases®. At the beginning of Diocletian’s
^ Aurelius Victor, Caes, xxxix, 44 r?.; Fiebiger, P.W. s.v. Frumentarii,
col. 123.
® Hirschfeld, Kl. Schriften, p. 625; A. E. R. Boak, Univ. Mich. Stud.
Hum. Ser. xiv, 1924, p. 68. For another view, Stein, op. cit. p. 173, n. 2.
® Cod. Theod. vi, 35, 3. * Cf. Dessau 1211.
® Ib.\ cf. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Ferwaltungsbeamten\ p. 38 sq.
® Cod. Just. HI, 3, 25 cf A. Steinwenter, P.W. s.v. ludex, col. 2471.
XI, n] PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION 391
reign there may have been, in round figures, fifty provinces in
existence. By comparison with earlier conditions, Septimius
Severus had already subdivided Syria and Britain (see above,
pp. 1 1, 36 s^.) and Aurelian had carried through the transference
of the province of Dacia to the left bank of the Danube,
thus reducing in size the neighbouring provinces (see p. 301).
In all probability, Novempopulana also had been separated from
Aquitania before Diocletian’s reignh The innovations of Dio-
cletian, if we may anticipate, were not introduced at one blow,
but were only carried out gradually^. The separation into Imperial
and senatorial provinces now ceased to exist, and therewith, for
good and all, the Senate’s show of sovereignty in provincial ad-
ministration; so also the privileged position of Italy, which was
now included in the system of provincial administration. In this,
too, the emperor could point to precedents. Dio® had already
pleaded (seep. 60) for the administrative assimilation of Italy to the
provinces, in so far as it was not subject to the City Prefect within
a hundred miles from Rome, and from as early as the second
century areas where trials were conducted by imperial iuridid,
men of praetorian rank, were instituted (vol. xi, p. 433 sq.),
while curatores had been appointed for the supervision of the
municipalities (vol. xi, p. 468 ^^.). From the reign of Caracalla
there were, in addition, at first special mandatories ad corrigendum
statum Italiae, later mostly called corrector es totius Italiae\ but, all
the same, there were already before Diocletian several correctores
Italiae for particular areas, although these areas were not named
in their titles, and so it still continued for a time until, for example,
a corrector Italiae regionis Transfadanae, or a corrector Italiae Trans-
padanae, together with a corrector Campaniae, appears*. The final
division into such areas seems to have been completed about
A.D. 300®. For these, it is true, the designation provincia was at
first avoided, but technically there remained no difference. Even
now Rome and the area as far as the hundredth milestone remained
excepted.
As in the case of the division of Italy, so also the subdivision
of the provinces was carried out gradually. The division of Egypt
into three and, at the same time, the complete assimilation of it
1 J. B. Bury, J.R.S. xiii, 1923, p. 13^; who, however, goes too Ar in
attributing the establishment of other provinces to Aurelius and Probus; cf.
Stein, op. cit. p. 65, n. 3.
^ J. G. C. Anderson, J.R.S. xxii, 1932, pp. 24 sqq.
® Dio Lit, 22, I. * C.I.L. VI, 1418 sq.i Dessau 1212.
® A. von Premerstein, P.W. s.v. Corrector, col. 1654.
392 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
to the other provincial administrations only began after the
suppression of the rebellion (see p. 335), and Numidia was first
divided in the last year of DiocletianL The list given in a manu-
script from Verona, laterculus Feronensis^, comes nearest to the
actual state of the division of provinces, as it was at the end of his
reign. The details given in this manuscript, however, are not, as
was long supposed, identical with the list in Diocletian’s time; on
the contrary, a comparison of it with the list of provinces re-
presented at the Council of Nicaea and with the account of a Synod
of Antioch in a.d. 328, shows that, for the Eastern provinces, the
laterculus is evidence only for conditions after the changes intro-
duced by Constantine when he had taken possession of the Eastern
part of the Empire, while, for the West, it represents only the
provincial divisions after the year 358, unless it is assumed that
the arrangements made by Diocletian were in part abrogated and
then later re-introduced®. But certainly the number of provinces
increased, in round figures, to a hundred under the first Tetrarchy.
Of the former senatorial provinces, Africa and Asia retained
a proconsul at the head of their governments, and were subject
directly to the emperor, not to the Praetorian Prefects. A third
proconsul was appointed for Achaea^. Further, the governors,
after this, bore the titles, with their emphasis on rank, of con-
sularis, corrector 2m<lpraeses. It is usually assumed, and doubtless
on the point of principle rightly, that the first two groups of
offices were filled from men from the senatorial class and,
indeed, of the rank of ex-consuls, whereas the positions of
correctores were filled from men of the rank of ex-praetors, and,
on the other hand, tht praesides were equites and viri perfectissimi^.
Whether Diocletian had in mind a rigid division between pro-
vinces governed by equites •3x16. hj senators is not certain, but
he may well have allowed senators, now as earlier, to reach
high civil office. Moreover, this period affords but little certain
evidence for the title consulari^, as for instance the title of the
governor of the still undivided Phrygia and Caria (vTrartKos rjyefimv),
of which the literal translation would be consularis praeses^ though
there is also the evidence of another title for the governor of the
Cf. G. Costa, D\z. Epig. Diocletianus, p. 1834.
® Mommsen, Ges. Schriften, v, pp. 561 sqq.-, O. Seeck in his edition of
t)xe Notitia Dignitatum,'^'^. sqq,
® Cf. E. Schwartz, Bay. Ahh. 1937, pp- 79 sqq.
* B.g. Dessau 1217, 1220.
® At times even after a.d. 293 still vir egregius (Dessau 638).
® On the title consularis for governors before Diocletian cf. Dessau,
Index VI, vol. m, i, p. 356.
XI, n] THE SUBDIVISION OF PROVINCES 393
same province (arpccrySewr'^s Kal am-LcrTpdTtjyos t&v %ej 3 acrT 0 )v
ujraros), that is, praeses Phrygiae et Cariae kgatus propraetore
Augustorum consularis^. It almost seems as if only the title con-
sularis was not yet firmly established, although it could be borne,
in conjunction with another, by men of this rank even before
Diocletian, as, for instance, also in the case of the consularis vir
corrector Camp aniae^. On the other hand, the career of L. Aelius
Helvius Dionysius gives evidence pointing in the other direction,
for he was City Prefect in 301 and, after he had been corrector
utriusque Italiae.^ and had thus administered areas in both parts
of Italy, became governor of Coele Syria, and bore as his title
there, only praeses Syriae Coeks^^ vrh.en we might have expected,
in the case of this man from the senatorial class, consularis.
Besides this, there already occurs, soon after the abdication of
Diocletian, a v{ir) p(erfectissimus')corr(ector') Apuliiae) et Calabiriaef,
and probably also the career of a certain eques., named Caecilianus,
who was corrector of the same provinces, belongs to the period
before the reign of Constantine®. In any event, the differences
of class cannot any longer have been so very keenly felt, when
Constantine, even at the beginning of his reign, could ignore them.
In order better to control the provincial administration, the
earlier extraordinary deputies of the Praetorian Prefects (p. 380)
now became a permanent institution. The vicarii praejectorum
praetorio^.) or simply vicarHyhsL^ a definite area assigned to them,
which in general corresponded with the extent of one of the twelve
dioeceses which were created at this time. These were: Oriens, the
lands south of the Taurus with Isauria as far as Egypt and
Cyrenaica; Pontus (Eastern Asia Minor); Asiana (Western Asia
Minor); Thrace, with Lower Moesia; Moesiae, with Macedonia,
Epirus, Achaea and Crete; Pannoniae, with Dalmatia and
Noricum; Italia, with Raetia; Africa (west of the Great Syrtes);
Hispaniae with Mauretania Tihgitana; Viennensis (southern
and western France as far as the Loire); Galliae (the rest of
France and the lands as far as the Rhine); Britanniae, now sub-
Anderson, op. cit. p. 24.
^ Dessau 1212; cf. von Premerstein, op. cit. col. 1653,11. i sqq.', col. 1654,
11. 32 sqq.
® Dessau 1 21 1 ; Stein {op. cit. p. 103, n. 2) is of the opinion that this office
existed before Diocletian’s reform, but against this may be set the pre-
existent subdivision of Italy into two larger administrative areas, the
Vicariates; cf. von Premerstein, op. cit. col. 1654.
^ C.I.L. IX, 687; cf. L. Cantarelli, La Diocesi Italiciana, p. 156.
® Dessau 1 21 8; for another view Stein, op. cit. p. 1 85, n. 2 and Cantarelli,
op. cit.p. sq. ® Dessau 1214.
394 the reforms of DIOCLETIAN [chap.
divided into four provinces. In addition, Italy was divided into
two vicariates. The vicarius Italiae, with an official residence in
Milan, had the districts north of the Apennines, annonaria
(see below, p. 400). Suburbicarian Italy, that is, the rest of the
mainland and the islands, was subject to the vicarius in urhe
Roma. 'Vh.e, proconsuls were exempted from the supervision,
which the vicarii had the right to exercise over the provincial
administration; further, the praefectus Aegypti formed an inter-
mediate authority between the vicarius oi th.& dioecesis Oriens and
the governors of the newly-created Egyptian provinces^. The
activities of the vicarii meant a weakening of the Praetorian
Prefecture, especially in that their jurisdiction competed with
that of the Prefects in so far as appeals against their verdicts went
direct to the emperor. The same intention of weakening the
higher office may be recognized in the institution of a vicarius
praefecturae urbis'^, side by side with the City Prefect. The vicarii
were of the equestrian class and viri perfectissimi^. It has been
suggested that we should see, in the setting-up of the vicarii even
over the great majority of the senatorial governors, an important
principle at work, namely the tendency to bring those of higher
standing into dependence upon officials of lower rank^. And in
fact, for the future, not only was the higher official responsible
for the actions of his subordinates, but the latter also were
responsible for the behaviour of their superior. In all this, however,
there remains the doubt, whether the developments with regard
to the vicariate did not arise from the intention to reserve these
newly-created posts for equites who engaged in civil careers, in
order not to make the latter too short in comparison with the
military. Here also, it is wise to think of the difference as more
closely connected with the real standing of an office than with the
title of a class or rank, even if it did take some time before the
designation of a class, vir clarissimus, could become that of a rank,
which then, in its turn, stood higher than the designation per-
fectissimus. Vicarii and governors were purely civil officials,
concerned with justice and administration; hence, generally
speaking, the term iudices is used for such civil officials.
^ M. Gelzer, Studien %ur by%. Verwaltung J'gyptens, p. 5.
® Dessau 1214; cf. Ensslin, Byz. Zeitschr. xxxvi, 1936, p. 320.
® Helvius Dionysius once more provides an exception as iudex sacrarum
cognitionum totius orientis, which describes the vicariate of the East (Dessau
1211).
* Cf. H. M. D. Parker, A History of the Roman World from a.d. 138
to 337, p. 264; Stein, op. cit. p. 104.
XI, II] THE VICARIATE AND DIOECESES 395
In the course of the reform, military authority, with a very few
exceptions, was separated from the civil. Generals, as duces with
the rank of viri perfectissimi, took command in the provinces that
still had senatorial governors. As early as the year 289 we find
a distinction made between and duces in a Panegyric^. In
the provinces under an equestrian who, at the outset, com-
bined both powers, the separation was introduced only gradually as
the reform was carried through^ and it had become so far universal
by the end of Diocletian’s reign, that only in those provinces
where the hostile character of the inhabitants or of the neigh-
bours made a permanent state of siege necessary and those in
which, because of their smallness, no danger of a pronunciamento
was to be feared, as in Mauretania Caesariensis and Isauria, did
the praeses remain at the same time the military commandant®.
The duces were dependent upon the co-operation of the civilian
officers for their commissariat, a fact which also gave the desired
occasion for mutual supervision.
The increase in the number of official positions had as a result
the setting-up of a great number of official and, even in the lower
grades, a strict separation between the civil and military services was
introduced. It is true that all officials were still called milites^ and
that the cingulum militare formed part of the official costume which
the City Prefect, who performed his functions in the civil dress, the
toga, alone among the higher officials did not wear®. The staff of
a higher official could still be described as cohors^. Service, cohor-
talis militia, a designation that was only later restricted to that of
the subordinates of the governors®, still did not, even in the reign of
the Emperor Licinius, create a claim to the privileges of a veteran,
that is, of the militia armata^. Perhaps this happened on the
analogy of the military career under Diocletian, who had not given
to the veterans of the cohorts the same privileges as to those serving
in legions and the vexillationes^^. The recruitment of the personnel
of the civil offices was from the civil population. But, con-
formably with military usage, a strict order of advancement by
1 Paneg. x (ix), 3, 3. 2 Anderson, op. cit. pp. 24, 29 sq.
® Cf. Not. Dign. Occid. xxx, where the title dux et praeses and the
personnel of his officium show that the military side predominated; and
Orient, xxix.
^ Lactantius, de mart. pers. 7, 4. ® Ib. 31, 3^^.
® Cf. Th. Mommsen, RSm. Staatsrecht, ii®, pp. 1067, 1069.
Cf. Dig. XLViii, II, I.
® A. von Premerstein, P.W. s.n). Cohortales, col. 358; A. E. R. Boak,
P.W. s.v. OjSicium, col. 2047.
® Cod. Theod. vin, 4, i.
10 Cod. Just. X, 5 S, 3 -
396 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [ghap
seniority of service ruled also in the officia, as the general
exercised jurisdiction over his soldiers, so the higher official
became the regular judge of his staff. How far, moreover, the
conception of could finally be extended beyond service
actually rendered in the army, and in the officia^ is shown by a
quotation from St Ambrose*-: ‘omnes homines, qui sub ditione
Romana sunt, vobis militant imperatoribus terrarum ; ’ and we
need not hesitate to apply this dictum to the period of Diocletian.
And this obligation to serve the State must be considered to have
been civil in character for the majority of subjects.
III. THE STRENGTHENING OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE
The fundamental principle of the universal obligation to serve
in the army was not removed ^ but in fact recruitment was already
before, and especially after the time of Diocletian, conducted by
a mixture of conscription and enlistment. The method of finding
men for the army, as we see it generally practised in later times,
may be regarded as derived from a concentration and ex-
tension of existing conditions^. The levy, which took place under
the direction of protectores, affected the sons of soldiers, who were
subject to an hereditary obligation to serve which as early as 3 1 3
came to be regarded as a matter of course®; further, all those fit for
service who, as vacantes or otiosi, belonged to no corporation that
had obligations to the State or the municipality, or who, as vagi, men
without a domicile, were not attached to a cultivable holding of
land. An indirect form of levy existed in the obligation to provide
recruits, laid upon the landowners by the State, which must have
helped not a little to bind the coloni to the soil they cultivated.
Owing to the scarcity of labourers it seems that this obligation was
not without its hardships, although the capitularis functio, the duty
of providing one recruit only, was mostly performed by several
landowners together. As, with the increase in the numbers of
the army made by Diocletian, this demand was also intensified,
and gave rise to many abuses, the Emperor appears to have
acceded more often than his predecessors to requests to commute
the provision of recruits to the payment of money^. With the
money thus obtained, volunteers could then be enlisted from the
free peasantry of races skilled in warfare, especially, as heretofore,
^ Ambrosius, Ep. 17, I.
® Mommsen, Ges, Schriften, VI, pp. 246 sqq.-, Grosse, op. cit. pp. 198 sqq.
® Cod. Theod. vii, 22, i ; cf. Stein, op. cit. p. 85, n. 3.
* Lactantius, de mart. pers. 7 , 5*
XI, in] IMPERIAL DEFENCE 397
the Illyrians (see p. 332), but also, and to an increasing degree,
from tribes outside the Empire, later especially from Germans.
The laeti^ prisoners of war settled in separate, self-contained
groups on the land of the Empire, took a special place among the
elements of the population which were liable to military service,
and so did also the gentiles^ who came of peoples which acknow-
ledged the sovereignty of the Empire but which were not subject
to its administration.
Diocletian carried further the reform of the army begun by
Gallienus (see above, pp. 377 and greatly increased the
numbers of troops under arms. Special attention was still paid to
the system of frontier defence^. It is only necessary here to cite one
particularly impressive example of the efforts made in the building-
up of the frontier defences, the strata Diocletiana^ that solid and
fortified military road from Damascus by way of Palmyra to Suraon
the Euphrates, together with the extension of the forts and watch-
towers on the road from Petra by way of Palmyra to Circesium®,
In connection with the gradual development of the division of the
provinces, the frontier provinces, now made smaller, received, ac-
cording to the practice developed in the course of the third century,
in the ordinary way two legions each, under the duces. For the
other bodies of troops also this formation in pairs was generally
introduced. Thus the total number of legions, which is reported to
have been thirty-three under Garacalla®, and which, probably
before the reign of Diocletian, had undergone a certain amount
of augmentation, was increased to sixty, in round figures, and the
total, also, of the auxilia connected with them, the cohorts and
the alacy was similarly increased. Lactantius^ blames Diocletian for
having so multiplied the army that each of the four emperors had
more troops under arms than the earlier principes. That is a gross
exaggeration; for we can hardly suppose that the number of
troops under arms had been even doubled. Although the newly-
raised legions may perhaps have had at first the nominal strength
of six thousand men, they must later have been much smaller,
and can hardly have exceeded the strength of the original detach-
ments from which, in part at least, the new legions had originated,
as, for example, the legions of the same name which were created
from the V Macedonica and XIII Gemina for service in Egypt®.
1 Zosimus II, 34, 15 Paneg. ix (iv), 18, 4.
® Cf. E. Fabricius, P.W. s.v. Limes, cols. 653—9; further references in
Parker, op. cit. pp. 275 and 367, n. 70; Besnier, op. cit. p. 309, n. 188.
* Dio LV, 23 sq. * Lactantius, de mart. pers. 7, 2.
® E. Ritterling, P.W. s.v. Legio, coL 1356.
398 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
The aim of frontier defence is apparent also in the new dis-
tribution of the legions^. Thus there were now stationed on the
Danube, from Noricum to its mouth, sixteen legions in place of
eleven from the beginning of the century, in Egypt six, after
this, in place of one; in the frontier provinces of the dioecesis
Oriens, from Arabia to Mesopotamia, twelve instead of eight^.
We may, perhaps, hazard a guess, that the increase set in earliest
on the Danubian frontier; for detachments from each pair of the
legions there, under praefositi, are found among the troops used
to suppress the revolt in Egypt®, and also the reinforcements
employed to carry the Persian war to a successful conclusion
(p. 336) were drawn by Galerius from that area^. We must
assume, in this connection, without, it is true, knowing about the
participation of more than one single regiment of cavalry,
designated comites, and of one further vexillatio in the Egyptian
campaign® ,that independent cavalry took part in it. For, even
before 293, the tactically independent cavalry of the legions was
known as vescillatio (see above, p. 379)®. And in an inscription
from Noricum of the year 3 1 1 or 312, before Constantine had
established his rule there, a fraefositus equitibus Dalmatis comi-
tatensihus appears’. Thus it is obvious that the separation of
cavalry and infantry, which was to be the distinguishing mark of
the late Roman army, was further advanced by Diocletian, and
that, in this connection, at least a certain number of cavalry
regiments, if not all already, were distinguished by the name of
comitatenses. But as the Praetorians were no longer available as a
reserve for use in emergencies (see above, p. 389), Diocletian
needed a substitute for them. It has been conjectured that he
retained a certain number of the detachments from the legions as
permanent formations for special service, evidence for this being
found in the presence in garrisons at Aquileia of a detachment
of the XI Claudia®, from which the later legion of comitatenses,
the undecimani, may have sprung. In any event, however, the
establishment of a corps d' elite, composed of veteran legionaries
called lanciarii^, marks a fully-authenticated step in the direction
of separating off a mobile reserve. One of these legionaries is
1 Parker, J.R.S. xxm, 1933, pp. 175 sqq.
® Ritterling, op. cit. col. 1 365 sq.
® P. Oxy, I, 43; cf. Ritterling, op. cit. col. 1359 sq.
* Ensslin, P.W. s.v. Maximianus (2) Galerius, col. 2522.
® P. Oxy. I, 43, col. tt, 24 sqq.-, col. I, 15.
« Cod. Just, vn, 64, 9; X, 55, 3.
’ Dessau 664. ® Parker, op. cit. p. 272.
9 Dessau 2045, 2782.
XI, IV] THE DISTRIBUTION OF FORCES 399
called /eaus in sacro comit{atu) landariu^. In this case, the
conclusion is permissible, that at least this troop of infantry
should be considered comitatenses. And when the Caesar Julian
extols Maximian Herculius, Constantius I and Constantine as
the creators of the army stationed in Gallia, which he commanded®,
we may assume here too independent new formations, which
later appear under the name oi auxilia palatina. So much is
certain, that the comitatenses were not first created, as a mobile
fighting army, by Constantine®, however much he may afterwards
have done towards developing the organization which Diocletian
had initiated.
IV. THE REFORM OF TAXATION
AND THE REGULATION OF THE COINAGE
The carrying-on of wars and the increase in the size of the
army, as well as the increase in the administrative apparatus, with the
heightened expenditure of the court, and finally the cost of the new
buildings put a very heavy burden on the finances. For, besides
fortresses and other military buildings (see p. 397), Diocletian
himself, and, in imitation of him or at his suggestion, his co-
regents also, did much building, so that an unfriendly critic
could even speak of Diocletian’s ‘building mania The palace
near Salonae, the home of the Emperor’s old age, in which the
Old Town of Spalato fitted comfortably, and the vast ruins of
the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, still to-day perpetuate the
splendid ideas of their builder and at the same time give per-
manent expression to the effort, in taxes and labour-services,
which his government demanded from the subjects for their
erection. All this, which provoked Lactantius® to the criticism,
that the number of beneficiaries had begun to grow greater than
the number of tax-payers, demanded, in view of the precarious
state of the finances, a reform of the system of taxation. Because
of the terrible debasement of the coinage, the receipts from
taxation could not cover the needs of the State, even when what
had formally been regarded as the norm was no longer strictly
observed®. As a result, special levies in kind, destined to secure the
support of the army, became even commoner, and were raised by
1 Dessau 2781.
2 Julian, Or. i, p. 34 c; Mommsen, Ges. Schriften, vi, p. 236, n. 3.
® Zosimus n, 34, 2.
^ Lactantius, de mart, pers, 7, 8; see p. 567. ® lb. 7, 3.
® Cf. G. Mickwite, Geld und Wirtschaft im romhchen Reich des 4 Jahr-
hunderts n. Chr. p. 177 sq. with pp. 59 sqq, against Seeck, op. cit, ii®, p. 226 sq. •
400 THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN [chap.
special order (indictio)^ of the emperor from the provinces forming
the area on the line of march. For these special levies, the
designation annonae'w^s already established®. The reform of Dio-
cletian converted this extraordinary levy into a regular official tax.
Its yield, the annona, formed for the future the chief foundation
for the State economy. The tax was a payment made in kind,
levied, as far as was possible, evenly over the whole Empire, and
directly connected with the produce of agriculture. Town-dwellers
who had no landed property were thus exempted from it. Italy
was so far included in it, that the northern districts had to provide
the and were thus known as the regio annonaria. The
rest of Italy, the regio suburbicaria^ had, on the other hand, to
undertake the provisioning of Rome with cattle, wine, wood and
lime. For the carrying-out of the new tax-regulations, it was
necessary to establish, by means of a State-conducted census, the
number of the units, for purposes of taxation, which had to pay
the annona. Every five years verifications took place, which were
later consolidated into a cycle of fifteen years, and this was, in
its turn, also c^dXtd indictio. A unit for the purposes of taxation
was an area of cultivable land {iuguni) which could be worked by
one man (caput) and which would provide him with the means
of existence. The unit was thus both the land and the labour on
it, in which connection a female worker counted as half a caput.
The numbers of iuga ^nd, capita had therefore to correspond with
one another. According to this method of assessment, the tax
could also be designated iugatio or capitatio. The extent of the
iugum was determined by its productivity and the type of cultivation
it underwent. Thus, in Syria, the unit consisted, according to the
quality of the land, of 20, 40 or 60 acres of plough-land, or of
5 acres of vineyard, or of 225 or, in mountainous districts, 450
olive-trees®. On the other hand, in Africa the unit remained
fixed on the arrangement, which had existed up till now, of the
centuria of 200 acres, whose basis was the obligation to make
payment in kind for the victualling of Rome. Besides this, there
was also the capitatio Humana and, further, the capitatio animalium\
in this way the poll-tax and animal-tax of the period previous
to Diocletian were included in his new system^. A recently-
discovered papyrus has furnished us with a copy of the edict, dated
16 March 297, of the Prefect of Egypt, which brought the new
1 Cod. Just. X, 16, 3. ® lb. X, 16, 2; cf. Dessau 1330.
® Bruns-Sachau, Syrisch-rSmisches Recktshuck, 1880, | 121.
‘ See Stein, op. cit. p. logsq. for the right interpretation; cf. id. Gnomon
VI, 1930, p. 409, n. 2.
XI, IV] THE BASES OF TAXATION 401
tax-regulations into force for that country^. With the words:
‘therefore I have publicly set forth the quota of each aroura^
with respect to the quality of the soil, and the quota of each head
of the peasants,’ the ingatio and the capitatio humana are intro-
duced at the same time.
Commissioners for valuation (censitores) carried out the
assessment. The State had the greatest possible interest in the
maintenance of the units that had once been established. Thus, if
fields were abandoned fay their cultivators, the government took
steps to grant them to others who would then be
responsible for the taxes. Once the census had been completed
it was only in exceptional cases possible to secure the sending
by the emperor of inspectores or peraequatores for the purpose of
a revision; for indeed, in such cases, a reduction of the number
of tax-units might have to be faced. The amount of the tax
demanded from the unit was, it is true, by no means always the
same. Every year, by the imperial indktio, the total needs of the
State were publicly announced; then the Praetorian Prefect’s
office, which even now continued to have the administration of the
annona and remained, for the future, the most influential financial
authority, apportioned it among the provinces, where it was the
duty of the governors to take the necessary steps for the collection.
If, for whatever reason, the sum estimated by the indictio proved
not to be sufficient, an additional assessment, the supermdictio,
was imposed^.
The collection of the taxes had to be carried out by the governor’s
subordinates, under his supervision, and, in particular, by the
members of the councils of the municipalities, as an obligatory
duty (munus). From among the latter the collectors (susceptores)
and the recoverers of arrears (exactores) were appointed. Those
responsible for the collection had to make good any deficits
resulting from uncollectable taxes, and in the event of their
inability to pay, the liability falls upon the whole body of coun-
cillors that had appointed them. It is not surprising that the
State, in face of the anxiety to escape such burdens, now first
fully and completely developed the hereditary fixation of indi-
viduals in a class. In just the same way, the tax-regulations must
have had as a result a growth of hereditary obligations and
the binding to the soil, first and at once, of the co/om, the
1 P. Cair. Inv. no. 57074 ed. A. E. R. Boak, Early Byzantine Papyri
no. i; jPt. de Papyrol. ii, 1933, pp. I eqq.
® This may be an attempt to translate iugum.
® Ensslin, P.W. s.v. Superindictio, col. 933. , ! V
4oa the reforms of DIOCLETIAN [chap.
tenants^ (in this case, perhaps, in connection with the effect of a
system of tenure based on a fixed percentage of produce), and also
of the small independent peasantry^. The landowner paid the tax
for that part of his property the cultivation of which he managed
himself; the coloni were responsible directly to the collecting
authority for their share. Moreover, at first tht annona had to
be paid by all agricultural land, even by the imperial domains.
It was reserved for later arrangement to break through the
original intention to equalize the burdens of taxation, by means
of privileged exemption. In the edict already cited, the reason
for the new regulations is given as the desire to put an end to the
former arbitrariness and inequality, with their disastrous results,
and ‘to give a saving norm to which the taxes shall conform.’
And Aurelius Victor^ thought, at its first application, that the
reform was quite tolerable. Only Lactantius, whose hostility
to Diocletian is plain to see^, asserts that the heavy burdens of
the indktiones had immediately broken down the strength of the
co/oKf and, at the same time, caused a flight from the land. The
attempt of Galerius to impose the cafitatio and indeed the ca-pi-
tatio humana on the populations of the towns also, and even on
Rome®, which was in part the cause of the elevation of Maxentius
to the throne, seems, after all, to have been confined to his own
half of the Empire®.
The fact that there was, in the re-organization of the ad-
ministration of the State finances, a recognition of a fully-developed
system of natural economy, has given rise to the opinion that,
as a result of the disorganization of the coinage, a general retro-
gression to a natural economy set in. But an examination of the
papyri has proved for Egypt that in contracts concerning future
payments and also in those concerning leases of land, letting of
houses, loans and service, the system of natural economy, during
the inflation period, made only small headway, and even then
only in cases where payments in kind were already usual. There
are, too, enough examples of conditions in the rest of the
Empire to prove that private transactions were in no way
predominantly based on a natural economy; on the contrary,
1 Cod. Theod. v, 1 7, i of a.p. 332 already assumes the compulsory attach-
ment to the soil of the coloni.
® Mickwitz, op. cit. pp. 1 79 xjj. ; Stein, op, cit. p. 22, n. 2.
® Caes. xxxix, 32.
* Lactantius, de mort. pers, 7, 3; cf. Lydus, de magistr. i, 4, p. 1 1 , 11 sq.
Wuensch. ® Lactantius, de mart. pers. 26, 2.
® Cf. Cod. Theod. xm, lo, 2 with Seeck, Regesten, p. 52, l"] sqq.
XI, IV] TAXATION IN KIND 403
money was still the chief medium of exchange^. But why
then had the emperor given preference to a tax founded on
payments in kind? Payments in kind were a direct guarantee
of the supplies for the army and thus served to ensure the security
both of the Empire and of the throne. And, in addition, it may
well have been the case that those who were in receipt of salaries and
wages, that is to say the influential members of the bureaucracy,
with memories of unpleasant experiences during the period of
inflation, saw in the fixing of their incomes in kind an assurance
of their future stability. If, having established the system,
the State wished to cover its other needs completely, it had to
insist more than ever upon the performance of the unpaid
services of its subjects, but this is treated of elsewhere (see
chap, vii). Thus, as regards the membership of the municipal
councils, Diocletian’s rescripts show that an obligation to serve al-
ready existed, and it may be assumed that by now it was no longer
an easy task to find the necessary number of persons to undertake
such duties; in consequence reasons for being exempted from
undertaking them, which had formerly been in force, such as
illness, illiteracy and injamia (loss of honour), were not regarded
now as valid ; similarly the previous consent of the father was no
longer necessary for the nomination of a son who was still subject
to parental authority^.
Diocletian’s reform of the coinage proves that he did not
intend to change the existing economic system, and it was much
rather directed to making ends meet and to creating an easier
circulation of money, with the security necessary for this. In the
first place, his minting of coins was a continuation of the methods
of previous reigns, although in the case of gold coins the standard
used at the beginning, of 70 aurei to the pound, was soon set at
60 (see p. 330). After the naming of the Caesars, a reform of the
coinage was planned and, even before 295/6, was so far carried
into effect, that in Alexandria the new imperial coinage was
already being minted, although the old provincial coins were not
yet wholly given up®. Soon after this, the last relics of a local
system were cleared away. The difficulty of changing money was
to be disposed of by this means. All mints, of which the number
was increased, struck, under a strict imperial control, Empire coins
of uniform types. The separate mints distinguished their coins
with the abbreviations of the names of the towns in which they
were situated, together with special marks for the officinae and
^ Mickwitz, op. dt. pp. 115 sqq. ® Cod. Just, x, 32, 4-13.
® J. Vogt, Die Alexandrmischen Munzen, i, pp. 225
THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN
404
[chap.
the issues. The distribution of mints, which was by no means
uniform over all the dioeceses (Spain, for instance, had none at all),
seems to have been determined by a consideration of the local
needs of trade and necessity of assuring the supplies for the army.
The reform^ further raised the standard of the aureus to 60 to the
pound, and also introduced a silver coin, of which 96 went to
the pound and which thus resembled the denarius of Nero, but
which was not given this name and was probably simply called
the argenteus. In order to provide small change, Diocletian
continued the minting of billon, of an alloy of copper with a
very small addition of silver, and, to be precise, in three denomina-
tions: one, weighing about 150 grains (9.72 grammes), with the
laurel-wreathed head of the emperor and the type ‘ Genius Populi
Romani,’ usually known as the follts\ a middling-sized one,
weighing about 60 grains (3.89 gr.), with the head crowned
with rays {radiatt)\ and a small one, weighing about 20 grains
(1.3 gr.), again with the laurel-wreath. The second denomination
was about the size and weight of the xx.i coins of Aurelian,
which had passed as the equivalent of two sestertii of 10 libellae
each (see p. 307). Diocletian also, in his turn, built on the
foundation of the sestertius, although he identified the tenth
part of it, the libella, with the denarius communis^ of which no
more than 50,000 might be paid for the gold pound (p. 269),
whereas 40 were reckoned to the argenteus, 20 to the follis, which
also had the mark xx.i, and 5 to the middling-sized piece. Thus
the coin of Aurelian, which corresponded to the last of these,
was devalued to one quarter. In this connection, we must assume
that there was a valuation of the different coins of the separate
denominations in relation to one another and the denarii com-
munes, so that we get at least an approximation to the already-
mentioned highest price of gold, reached in the maximum
standard of Diocletian, namely: 60 aurei,= iloo argentei,= 2 ^oo
folks, =<^S qo radiati, — 1^000 of the small coins,— 48000 denarii
(see above, pp. 269, 338)®.
It is possible that the revaluation of the billon coins, because
of their nominal value being estimated too high in relation to
their real, was the cause of a further disturbance of the markets
(p. 338), which made itself especially strongly felt where troops
passed on the march. The protection of the soldiery against an
^ Cf. H. Mattingly, Roman Cains, pp. 217 sqq.
^ See Mickwitz, op. cit. p. 70, n. 138, who admits this as a possibility, but
also proposes other conclusions, rating the/o/& at 5 denarii, the radiate coin
at 2, leaving the smallest unit quite out of account.
XI, V] COINAGE REFORM: THE EDICT ON PRICES 405
artificial raising of prices is the reason given, in the preamble, for
the publication of the Edict on Prices of the year 301^, together
with the general intention to prevent a real rise in prices also.
For food-stuffs and for the most varied kinds of merchandise,
maximum prices are given in denarii. The price of bread-corn and
luxury goods, the daily wages of artisans, as well as the authorized
fees for the services of an advocate, all found a place here, and
the whole offers to the economic historian an opportunity of deep
insight into the commodities and the possibilities of employment
in those days, and also, because of the fixing of the maximum
price for gold, the possibility of obtaining an idea of relative values.
We may say with confidence that this edict is by far the most
consistent attempt to regulate prices and wages of which we
know® and that it was therefore designed for the whole Empire®.
As all the surviving fragments of the inscription have been found
in the East, it may be inferred that Diocletian was concerned
that its provisions should continue to be known, whereas, in the
West, the customary form of announcement was considered
sufficient. But in spite of threats and the imposition of the most
rigorous sentences, the authority of the State found its match
in the opposition of traders and merchants; and the Edict had
to be revoked^.
V. CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES
IN DIOCLETIAN’S GOVERNMENT
In spite of the many connections with earlier tendencies, we
have, in general, had to deal with innovations in the administration
of the Empire, in the reform of taxation and in the regulation of
the coinage. But on the other hand, in one thing Diocletian
followed wholly in the steps of his Illyrian and Pannonian
predecessors and compatriots, namely, in his attempt to maintain
and invigorate the idea of Rome. It would be wrong to believe
that in this he was inspired by memories of the historical glories
of Ancient Rome or that he was moved by a romantic passion for
the past. He lacked almost all the qualities of a romantic. But
^ Ed. Mommsen-Bliimner (Berlin, 1893): for the fragments found later
cf. Besnier, op. cit. p. 315, n. 225. Cf. Lactantius, de mart. pers. 7, 6;
Aurelius Victor, Caes. xxxix, 45; Consul. Constantinop. in Mon. Germ.
Juct. Ant. IX, p. 230; Malalas xir, p. 307, 3 sqq. (Bonn).
® Stade, op. cit. p. 64. ® ii, 24 (p. 9, Mommsen-Bltimner).
* Lactantius, de mort. pers. 7, 7. On die attempt of Stade (op. cit. pp.
62 sqq.) to prove that effect could be given to the Edict cf. Stein, op. cit.
p. 1 1 3, n. I and Mickwitz, op. cit. pp. 70 sqq.
4o6 reforms of DIOCLETIAN [chap.
he had, in the long years of his service and in the course of his
many journeys to and fro across the Empire, become imbued with
the idea that the emperors, their army and their civil service, and
so, also, the subjects were, or at least should be, Roman. True,
it was a Roman-ness of his own day, with an Illyrian-Pannonian
stamps, that had revealed itself to him, but one which none
the less, conscious of the continuing influence of a great past
and united by a momentous task to be performed in the present,
displayed a vigorous self-confidence that could face the future
without dismay. The various elements in the population of the
Empire, often so markedly different from one another, were to
be welded together into a unity by this idea of Rome, of which
the emperors were reckoned the most impressive exponents, and
which should find its expression in law and religion. As a result
of such principles, the government of Diocletian, in spite of all
its innovations, took on a markedly conservative aspect^.
Besides the attempt to create for Roman law a larger sphere of
influence, we encounter, in the many rescripts of Diocletian,
again and again the endeavour to check the further infiltration of
non-Roman, and especially of Greek, legal concepts into the law
of the Empire. But even he was not able wholly to prevent this
process. Moreover, the number of cases for which the imperial
decision was invoked, shows, if not a lack of legal knowledge in
the judges of the courts of lower instance, at all events at least
a strong mistrust of their judgments in the parties seeking justice.
On the other hand the members of the imperial consistorium^ who
must be regarded as the authors of the imperial rescripts ‘the
character of which is often reminiscent of classical jurisprudence,’
are praised by a distinguished jurist for their knowledge, which
was as clear as it was comprehensive®. Possibly we may per-
haps see in this holding fast to the old a proof of a lack of
originality, if it were not for the existence of certain innovations
in private law, which the Emperor allowed as being in the spirit
of the old, truly Roman law. His insistence, also, upon Latin as
the ofEcial language, which was in itself promoted by the increase
in numbers of the civil service, and also upon the spreading of a
knowledge of Latin in general, points in the same direction^,
although, it is true, this belated attempt at romanization did not
have any great success outside the circles interested in the civil
^ AlfSldi, Fiinftmdzwanzig Jahre romisch-german. Kommission, pp. 1 1 sqq.
® Cf. Stade, op. cit. pp. 66 sqq.
® L. Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht, p. 199.
Cf. Stade, op. cit. p. 67 sq.
XI, V] ROME IN LAW AND RELIGION 407
service as a career or outside the offices themselves, and even here
such success was not lasting.
Diocletian’s religious policy was also conservative. Care for
religion was one of the duties of the emperor. But, over and
above this, he was concerned to win the protection of the gods by
a revival of Roman piety and morals. If, in dedications, we
encounter the old formulas, and if the Jovius laid great emphasis
on the worship of Juppiter Optimus Maximus, we must not
forget, in this connection, that we may indeed observe the form, but
cannot be sure of the content. In all probability, Diocletian recog-
nized in Juppiter, as Aurelian in Sol Invictus, only a manifestation
of the one highest, supreme godhead, so that, here also, it is apparent
that old ideas have changed. But, in spite of changed conceptions
and of the greatest possible freedom in permitted modes of
adoration, the intention remained fixed, to make plain in the State
religion the unity of men of the same way of thinking and to
release the forces, which tended to work in parallel directions, in
the interests of the Roman world and its imperial master^. Ever
since Decius, in view of the aggressive power of the Sassanian
Persia, which was strengthened by its State religion, had tried
to carry out a consolidation of forces on the same lines®, the idea
remained operative. It is true that Diocletian practised toleration
for a long time, perhaps in conformity with the same train of
thought to which he gave expression in his Edict on Prices, where
he justified his forbearance on the ground that he cherished the
hope that men would better themselves without compulsion®.
But, in the long run, he could not avoid the cogent necessity of
settling, once for all, this problem also among those which the
emperor had to face. The execution of this very important section
of his religious policy against the Christians is treated elsewhere^.
Hence more or less clearly, we see the ultimate aim of the auto-
cratic emperors : the will to make a single ruler, a single law and
a single religion the firm bonds of imperial unity.
In conclusion, we may say that, however much may have been
earlier achieved in most directions, Diocletian was the first to
gather together into a completed whole the various experiments and
^ M. Vogelstein, Katseridee-Romldee, '^'^. 50 on which cf. Ensslin,
Zeitschr. d. Sav.-Stiftmg, Liii, Kanon. Abt. xxi, 1932, p. 40a
® Cf. E. Meyer, Blute und Niedergang des Hellenismus in jdsien, p. 79;
Ensslin, N.J.f. Wiss. iv, 1928, p. 403; Kornemann, Die romische Kaiserzeit,
p. 144. ® I, 17. sq.
^ See above, p. 338 and, for a somewhat different interpretation,
below, pp. 662 sqq.
4o8 the reforms of DIOCLETIAN [chap. Xl, v
expedients of his predeeessorsj and that he thus created the firm
foundation for a new imperial system on which Constantine, in
particular, was destined to build. But, none the less, in spite of
changes and developments in details, his successors could not
deviate far from the main lines which he laid down. Thus it
comes about that the institutions of the late-Roman, or if we
prefer it, the early-Byzantine, State show a certain rigidity, which
was not so much the result of ingenious planning as the ex-
pression of an unavoidable development. When the very existence
of the Empire was at stake, autocratic absolutism became a neces-
sity, while the external pressure, which hardly ever relaxed, and
the internal demands, made by the maintenance of the adminis-
trative machinery, led to a constant strain upon the resources
of the Empire and even to their exhaustion. In this sense,
Diocletian’s financial policy, and the reform of taxation which
maintained that policy, were and remained the centre of his re-
organization of the Empire, round which was built up all the
inexorable fiscal system with all its consequences that in later
times was the hall-mark of this State. But, in spite of all, Dio-
cletian did not succeed in training the subject, who became more
and more a mere carrier of State burdens, to take a personal
interest in the political life around him. And so the State created
by Diocletian resembled, not the new house that he intended to
build, but rather an emergency shelter, which could indeed offer
protection from the storm, but in which the lack of light and
warmth became more and more obvious. But, in spite of all,
we can understand why it was that, after all the miseries of a
period that was often anarchic, a writer of the fourth century^
could still call him ‘the man whom the State needed,’ ‘vir rei
publicae necessarius.’
^ S.H.A. Carus, lo.
CHAPTER XII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PAGANISM
IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
I. INTRODUCTION
T he interactions of Greek, Macedonian, and Oriental ways
and institutions and their consequences for religion have
already been described (vol, vn, pp. i jyy.)* There was give and
take, but for a century and a half Hellenism predominated.
Oriental, and above all Egyptian, cults reached Greece in con-
siderable volume, but in hellenized forms, and they were incor-
porated within the native framework of religious organization. We
may call this the first wave of Oriental cults, in contrast with what
we shall call the second wave (pp. 42 a sqq ^ — the wave which came
to the Latin-speaking world. The first wave lacks certain striking
features of the second. Mithraism seems to have been absent,
though indeed the Iranian rites from which it developed were
practised here and there within Asia Minor; Zeus of Doliche
was not known outside his native Commagene ; the taurobolium
must indeed have existed, but was probably no more than a bull-
chase followed by a solemn sacrifice^ ; the priests of the Egyptian
deities as established in Greek cities were commonly annual
functionaries, comparable with the priests of Zeus and Apollo,
and not a professional clergy with a distinctive character.
Oriental cults sometimes came to Greece as a result of political
considerations, but in a far larger measure they were brought by
soldiers, trading groups or individuals, and slaves: then they
gained new adherents, not only among the unprivileged but also
among citizens of distinction. We can suggest reasons why the
ground thus gained was not lost. The traditional gods of the city-
state might, like the city-state itself, appear old and weary. The
novelty of the Oriental gods could be a virtue®, and they might
well appear less parochial and more adapted to men’s needs in the
new world of dynasts, and in the still larger oikoumene and kosmos
ruled by the decrees of Fate. They had also the prestige of the
1 For a possible indication of the blood baptism in Phrygia of the eighth-
seventh century b.c. cf. G. KSrte, Jth. Mitt, xxiii, 1898, pp. 97 sq^.
2 Cf vol XI, p. 579 sq., on the success of Alexander of Abonuteichos.
410 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
ancient East, and over and above this not only did their cult-
dramas impress the eye and ear, but also their mythology echoed
natural human emotions. Isis as wife and mother and widow, the
mourning Attis, the young Adonis cut off in his prime— they
need not avert their eyes, like Artemis, from the dying Hippolytus,
The half-Oriental gods were credited with a great readiness to help
their worshippers. They were epekooi, ‘ready to aid,’ an epithet
applied to them far more frequently than to the Olympians^.
New religious forces came into play, and new religious forms
were created. Nevertheless, the depth of the new development
was not equal to its extension. Various reasons for this may occur
to us. First, we have to reckon with the religious education which
the average citizen underwent : as boy, as ephebe and as adult, he
performed many functions in civic ritual, and they set their mark
on him. Secondly, rulers rarely sought to make innovations in re-
ligion. Thirdly, the political world in which a man lived was not,
as later under Roman rule, a large entity with a widespread social
stratification, but an aggregate of civic and regional units. You
were not a subject of a Seleucid or Ptolemaic empire; you were a
citizen of Alexandria or Antioch, or a member of a Syrian poli-
teuma, or a tribesman of the Trokondenoi. No centre sent forth
impulses comparable with those to be exercised by Rome.
A static equilibrium was thus attained, more Hellenic in the
older Greek cities, less Hellenic in the new Greek cities of Asia
Minor and Syria, still less and sometimes progressively less
Hellenic in the towns of the Fayum and of the eastern frontier.
The preservation of this equilibrium in the older Hellenic area
was further ensured by a decline in the infiltration of new popu-
lation elements. Till the middle of the second century b.c. the
older Greek cities had kept some significance in politics and in
trade; then the change was rapid and complete.
Rhodes was impoverished by Rome, Corinth destroyed ; Delos,
which had received Egyptian cults early and Syrian cults later, was
ruined by Mithridates. The population dropped and was still too
large. After Sulla Greece was a land for tourists, students, and
antiquarians, Athens a university city with a starving proletariate.
The tramp of soldiers seldom echoed south of the Egnatian Way;
the Syrian trader would not come, for who could buy his wares?
Foreign slaves could not be imported, save by the few who were
very rich^. The three main avenues for new cults were closed; in
^ O. Weinreich, Jth. Mitt, xxxvn, 1912, pp. 1 sqq.
® Note, however, Ditt.® 1042, where a slave founds a temple of Men
Tyrannos at Sunium.
XII, I] CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN RELIGION 4x1
so far as Oriental worships flourished in Greece (outside the
Roman colonies) it must, with very few exceptions, have been as
survivals of the first wave. A partial prosperity returned in the
second century of our era (vol. xi, pp. 555 redounded
to the benefit of local spirit and local institutions.
Rome was in a large measure isolated from Hellenistic evolution
until the time when she came to play an important and soon a
predominant part in this Graeco-Oriental world. It was all very
sudden. Foreign merchants increased in numbers, as it were
overnight; slaves came in masses from successful wars; soldiers
spent long years in distant lands and returned to Italy with new
beliefs and practices. The privileged position enjoyed everywhere
by Roman citizens, and even by non-Roman Italians greatly en-
couraged migration (vol. xi, p. 441), and migrants were commonly
exposed to new influences. Expansion and growth were in
process or in prospect down to the end of the second century of our
era. There was no chance of a static equilibrium; even Augustus
could not achieve this, when he used his great skill to remedy the
disintegration which came from wars and civil strife, from the
resulting new wealth and new poverty, and from the new ways and
new scepticism which had entered with such sudden violence.
The concentration of power at Rome caused her conquests to
have domestic repercussions which had no analogy in Macedon,
and the process of change was accelerated by various factors in
the framework of Roman life.
Apart from domestic cult, Rome’s worships were the care of
the State, and those of importance were controlled by permanent
boards composed of citizens of the highest rank. While local
parish worships were administered by annual boards of magistri
consisting of freedmen and slaves, no one other than the nobiles
and a few paid subordinates had any real function in the worship
of the great gods of the State. Religio and pietas were in the air,
but the Greek schooling of citizens, irrespective of wealth and
standing, in civic religious tradition was absent. Secondly, the
gods were more abstract. Thirdly, the lower orders were apt, when
things were going ill in this world, to think that the community’s
relations with the other world must be incorrect, and that
something must be done to restore th.& pax deorum. The governing
class met the situation by consulting Apollo, whether at Delphi or
more often through the Sibylline Books, and incorporating one
foreign cult after another in the worships of the State. Such cults
were set under the care of the quindecimviri or commission for
foreign worships, and, though fully incorporated in the Roman
412 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
scheme, retained the Greek rite. Thus hymns to the Mother of
the gods were sung in Greek. The hellenization of a worship was
cultural ; the romanization of a cult was political^.
These measures inet the needs of the moment, but did not
transcend the limitations of official cult, and the urban proletariate
was swelled by foreign elements. Its native members had not the
Senate’s contempt for unregularized alien worships, and Oriental
cults soon had many adherents among th.& flebs urhana. The ruling
class felt otherwise, and interfered repeatedly, often on the pre-
text of a fear, genuine or pretended, of immorality arising out of
secret rites, sometimes from a feeling that the solidarity of the
State was menaced.
II. OFFICIAL RELIGION
In a review of the attitude to religion of the Empire, as an
institution, the character of official policy, in its varying phases
of change and conservatism, requires definition. It is, indeed,
governed by the princeps^ as pontifex maximus, as member of all
the priestly colleges, and as responsible for public morals and
well-being. We learn it in the main from temple-foundations,
from coin-types, from dedications by the princeps or the Arval
Brothers, and from the actions ol quindecimviri sacris faci-
undis. The rule of Augustus and of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
continued and reinforced mos maiorum as understood by the
more serious spirits of the last generation of the Republic, but
could not change existing trends except by adding the new
religious sentiment towards the princeps. Cybele was well estab-
lished, before her cult was magnified by Claudius: the cult-drama
of Osiris was perhaps introduced at Rome under Gaius® (vol. x,
pp. 496, 499 jy.) and Egyptian cults were acceptable not only to
the demi-monde of Rome and the men of Pompeii but also to
farmers in Italy®.
The advent to power of the Flavian dynasty marks a new
epoch, for the new ruling class, recruited in a considerable measure
from the Italian municipalities, was very different in composition
from the Augustan nohiles and marked by a greater simplicity of
1 This is illustrated by the measure of liberty allowed in the S.C. de
Bacchanalibus. Aurelian (p. 414) is an exception.
® A room, possibly a chapel, with Isiac decorations, has been found in
his palace; see G. Rizzo, Monutnenti della pittura . . . fasc. 2, F, Cumont
in Rev, hist. rel. cxiv, 1936, pp. iccq sqq,
® Rustic calendars show this 5 ^ol X, p. 505 n. 2); A. L. Broughton (Class.
Phil. XXXI, 1936, pp. 353 jyy.) argues that they come from North Italy.
XII, Ii] NEW CULTS AT ROME 413
living and a smaller degree of traditionalism. Sarapis was believed
to have confirmed by miracle Vespasian’s claim to the throne,
and the precinct of Isis, which he shared, perhaps since the time
of Gains, was placed upon coins. Domitian, although his personal
devotion was to Minerva and Juppiter, reconstructed the temple
in the Campus Martins after a fire and was a benefactor of the
temple of Isis at Beneventum (vol. xi, pp. 27, 33).
In the succeeding period, when the emperors were drawn from
the Western provinces, Roman tradition was followed, and the
rise to power of some individuals from the Near East had no
striking consequences^. Hadrian, whose rule marked an epoch
in government and art, acted significantly when in building the
temple of Venus and Roma he introduced the point of view
of the provinces. His personal predilection was for classical
Greek ideas; while his favourite Antinous was deified in Egyptian
style as Osirantinous, Antinoupolis (vol. xi, p. 650 sq.) and the
art-type of Antinous (vol. xi, p. 791) were Greek. Nevertheless,
this did not change religious policy in Rome, where Hadrian
restored many temples, and his successor Antoninus Pius was
honoured ‘ob insignem erga caerimonias publicas curam ac re-
ligionem*^.’ At the end of this epoch Commodus shows the
weakening of tradition, while the Historia Augusta.^ for what it is
worth, stresses his irresponsibility and cruelty, and not his piety,
when mentioning his interest in Mithraic and other Oriental rites,
and the most notable feature of his coins is an obsession with
Hercules®. Nevertheless the coins do show novel concessions to
alien religions.
The Severan dynasty brought more drastic changes than had
the Flavian. Its members had policies, and, like Augustus,
appreciated the support which writers could give. Temples were
built in Rome to new gods — the African Bacchus and Hercules
(who figure prominently on the coins commemorating the Secular
Games of 204 ; see p. 2 1), Sarapis (on the Quirinal) and Dea Suria;
the temple to the Carthaginian Caelestis, attested in 259^, may
well be due to Septimius Severus. Caracalla, who built the temple
on the Quirinal, was known as ‘lover of Sarapis.’ Nevertheless,
Roman feeling was not dead, and Elagabalus went too far when
^ The appearance of relig. avg. on a coin of Marcus Aurelius with a
representation of Hermes, sometimes in a temple in Egyptian style (vol. xi,
pp. 357, 365; Volume of Plates v, 130, A) is probably due to a supposed
miraculous incident in the Marcomannic War.
® Dessau 341.
® Volume of Plates v, 130,^,05 M. Rostovtseff-H, Mattingly, y.R.S.
xm, 1923, pp. 91 sqq. * Dessau 4438.
414 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
he glorified the fetich of Emesa and sought to mate it to Vesta and
to make it the chief deity of the Roman world. He seems to have
provoked even the champions of other non-Roman cults^.
The Illyrian emperors stood for Rome: a peculiar devotion to
Vesta in Roman dedications of their time^ is one index of the
reaction, and the Decian Uhelli (pp. 202, 521), which for the first
time defined pagan loyalty, constitute another. Economic strin-
gency curtailed expenditures on traditional worship, but this was
not peculiar to such worship: throughout the Empire, dedications
are very rare from the middle of the third century till the time of
Diocletian^.
Nevertheless, this period is marked by one innovation of the
greatest importance — Rome had a Republican cult of Sol, but it
had faded, and the importance of Sol in the City is due to Aurelian,
who on his return from Syria built the great temple of Sol Invictus,
introduced the celebration of his birthday {natalis Invictt) on
December 25, and established the college of fontifices Solis.
Liberal as Aurelian was to other cults in the City, he thus in-
corporated in Roman constitutional form emotions and ideas which
had been constantly gaining in strength (see below, p. 4I7^y.).
It was a creative act, like the Ptolemaic creation of the cult of
Sarapis: it made what was potentially a ‘cosmopolitan religion^,’
and it gave a new concentration and emphasis to official piety.
Thereafter Sol was very prominent.
Diocletian’s main policy was Roman (see above, p. 407). While
the Jovii and Herculii restored a temple at Carnuntum, probably in
307, d(eo) s(oli) i(nvicto) m(ithrae) favtori imperii svi®, Dio-
cletian and Maximian made a dedication at Aquileia deo soli® and
Diocletian built an Iseum and a Sarapeum in Rome'^ ; nevertheless
the very titles Jovii and Herculii for the rulers, Jovia and Herculia
for legions, show the Roman emphasis of dynastic policy. Of
course paganism as a whole was strengthened and deliberately
given shape (as above all by Maximinus Daia) : the revival of private
dedications® may be ascribed partly to this, and partly (since it
starts before the persecution) to improved economic conditions.
1 F. Cumont, Rev. instr. puhl. Belg. xl, 1897, pp. 89 sqq.
® A. D. Nock, Harv. Theol. Rev. xxm, 1930, pp. 251 sqq.
® J. Geffcken, Der Ausgang des griechisch-romischen Meidentums, pp.
20 sqq.
* G. La Piana, Harv. Theol. Rev. xx, 1927, p. 321. ® Dessau 659.
* C.l.L. V, 803. For a temple erected at Comum to the same deity by
these emperors see F. Cumont, C.R. Ac. Inscr. 1914, pp. is/] sqq.
K. Stade, Der Politiker Diocletian, p. 1 07.
® Geffcken, op. cit. p. 29 sq.
XII, n] COIN EVIDENCE 415
Let us now turn to the evidence of coins and medallions for
alien cults^. They cannot tell us the whole of official policy: we
must not forget that, apart from the issue which shows the sisters
of Gaius personified as Virtues, they give no sign of the eccentri-
cities of that emperor. The Roman temple of Isis appears on coins
of Vespasian, that of Sarapis and that of Cybele on those of
Domitian. Attis is used by Hadrian, but only as a type for
Phrygia; Isis and Sarapis are represented as welcoming Hadrian
and Sabina, which is simply a record of their visit to Alexandria.
Hadrian was interested in provinces and regions as entities, with
their own traditions, as we see in his so-called ‘province’ series'^.
Medallions of Hadrian, on the other hand, and of both Faustinas®
represent Isis, and medallions of Hadrian and of his wife Sabina
show Cybele. So do medallions of Antoninus, the two Faustinas,
and Lucilla; and Cybele assumes special importance in connection
with the apotheosis of the elder Faustina, who is herself shown as
riding, like the goddess, in a chariot drawn by lions. On some
issues of this period Attis is associated with Cybele, These facts
assume importance in view of the contemporary rise of the
taurobolium (see below, p. 424 sq.). At the same time, while matri
DEVM SALVTARi occurs on a consecration-coin of Faustina I and
MATRI MAGNAE on coins of Faustina II and Lucilla, legends
naming the deities represented are otherwise lacking.
This fact adds significance to certain issues of Commodus. Not
only is he, in 192, represented as faced by Sarapis and Isis and
again as clasping hands with them over an altar^, but, at about the
same time, coins with a typeof Cybele bear the legend matri dev(m)
coNSERv. AVG., and others showing Sarapis have serapidi conserv,
avg. These have no parallel under any earlier princefs. Contrast
them with the conventional ivppiter conservator of 18 1 and
182. Even other legends of the end of Commodus’ principate,
I. o. M. sponsor, sec. avg. and lovi defens, salvtis avg., imply a
1 The evidence (when not cited) will be found in H. Mattingly— E. A.
Sydenham, Roman Imperial Coinage (M.-S.) (pending the appearance of iv,
ii, Cohen^ is used); H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British
Museum', Fr. Gnecchi, 1 medaglioni romani. The official character of the
religious interest of coins is strikingly Illustrated by the nearly complete
absence of Silvanus, who had no public worship in Rome: we have only a
coin of Trajan’s, where he apparently represents ‘the great native deity of
the woodlands of Illyricum’ (H. Mattingly, B.M.C. Rom. Emp. iii, p. xcix)
and medallions of Hadrian and Antoninus — all uninscribed.
^ J. M. C. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School, pp. 24 sqq. ; V olume of Plates,
V, izS,a-i. ® One such tjrpeof the older Faustina is listed in
M.-S. Ill, p. 189, as a coin. * Volume of Plates v, 130,^.
41 6 PAGANISM IN THE -ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
new directness of concentration upon his person. Previous rulers
had their divine protectors, but they would have shrunk from the
explicit HERC. coMMODiANo, which appears in 190, and from the
contemporary herc. com(iti), which is the forerunner of similar
types on which Sol is the Imperial comrade. Again, lovi
exsvp(erantissimo) in 186/7 188/9 implies the official
recognition of a popular tendency to astral thought; other evi-
dence records that Commodus named a month Exsuperatorius^.
The coinage of Commodus, like his life, may seem to betray an
eccentric megalomania comparable with that of Gains, and yet he
prefigures the future (vol. xi, p. 392). When we pass to the sturdy
realism of Septimius Severus, his coins show a strong consciousness
of his African origin. While the type of Dea Caelestis on his coins
in 203/4 and Caracalla’s in 203 to 2 10 or thereabouts is associated
with the legend indvlgentia avgg. in carth. and may be rightly
regarded as no more than a religious symbol for Carthage, the
appearance of Bacchus and Hercules with dis avspicibvs is
significant, for they are clearly the African equivalents of those
familiar gods. Their representation on coins commemorating the
Secular Games of 204 means that the gods of theprinceps ranked
as gods of the Empire. Again, Septimius Severus, like Clodius
Albinus (also an African), set saecvlvm frvgifervm on coins, and,
though he never used the native type once employed by Albinus,
this is no doubt the African god, a special interest of Albinus'
home, Hadrumetum. Caracalla has also a type of Ammon, widely
worshipped in Africa, with the legend lovi victori: but, since the
god had appeared on some small bronze coins struck by Marcus
Aurelius at Caesarea in Cappadocia, the reason for his emergence
here may be not Caracalla’s interest in Africa but his interest in
Alexander the Great: other indications show that the Macedonian
conqueror was again dominating men’s imaginations (p, yj'o).
Sol without a legend was a Republican coin-type occasionally
revived during the earlier Principate; sometimes he has the legend
oRiENs and stands for the Eastern interests of a particular time, for
instance Trajan’s. On the coins of Septimius he appears, and
between 202 and 210 has the striking legend pacator orbis on
issues of both Septimius and Caracalla: some of the latter’s,
between 201 and 210, call him rector orbis: one of Geta’s
appears to show him as in a special relationship to SoP. Such
^ F. Cumont, Arch. f. Religionswiss. rx, 1906, pp. 323 sqq.
2 A. Alfeldi, ‘ Insignien und T racht der romischen Kaiser ’ (in Rom. Mitt.
L, 1935), p. 107 sq., an article which should be consulted for this whole
range of ideas.
XII, Ii] THE THIRD CENTURY 417
ideas were not wholly new, but their numismatic formulation
anticipates the attitudes of Aurelian and of Constantine — ^the men
with a mission and authority. This Imperial self-consciousness, in
stronger men, was a major fact of history.
Cybele appears on Julia Domna’s coins from i93-'6 with
MATRi DEVM and MATRi MAGNAE and JuHa while still living was
represented as Cybele. Cybele comes again on Caracalla’s coins
of 213 (matri devm), and thereafter nearly drops out of the
repertory of Roman types into which influential empresses^ had
brought her. Isis is represented on coins of Julia Domna with the
legend saecvu felicitas and on Caracalla’s coins of 215, where
she is shown welcoming him — ^a transparent allusion to his visit
to Alexandria. Sarapis (without name) is frequent on Caracalla’s
probably contemporary issues, confirming the other evidence for
his predilection.
In spite of Julia Domna’s connections with Emesa, nothing
Syrian appears on the coinage till we come to Elagabalus^.
Elagabalus not only shows the sacred stone of Emesa on coins and
medallions^, but also uses the legends invictvs sacerdos avg.,
SACERD. DEI SOLIS ELAGAB., SANCT. DEO SOLI ELAGABAL., SOLI
PROPVGNATORi, svMMvs SACERDOS AVG. The literature has not
exaggerated. In sharp contrast, Severus Alexander, while con-
tinuing normal solar types, has otherwise a neutral coinage. The
succeeding years offer us nothing for our present purpose save
the combination of a solar type with aeternitas avg., aeternitati
AVG. under Gordian III, with aeternitas avg. and aetern.
iMPER. under Philip; the (unnamed) appearance of Sarapis on
coins of Gordian III and Gallic nus, one of whose medallions
is inscribed serapidi comiti avg.; issues of Claudius Gothicus
showing Sarapis, both alone and with Isis, and having in each
case coNSER. avg.; issues of Claudius Gothicus showing Isis Faria
with SALVS AVG. (a legend coupled also with an Apollo type), and a
Cabirus with deo cabiro, which has been thought to refer to the
repulse of the Gothic attack on Thessalonica, a seat of Cabiric cult.
Under Aurelian the pre-eminence of Sol, as the fountain-head
1 The next was Helena.
* The reverse type of venvs caelestis on a coin of Julia Domna
(Mattingly-Sydenham, op. cit, iv, i, p. 173) belongs to a coin of Soaemias
and was wrongly combined with the present obverse.
® One medallion has the inscription conservator avgvsti. The sacred
stone appears also on Alexandrian coins (J. G. Milne, Catalogue of Alexandrian
coins in the Ashmolean Museum, p. xxxviii), which is the more significant,
since we do not see in them later any indications of Aurelian’s policy.
C.A.H. XU *7
4i8 paganism in the roman empire [chap.
of Imperial power, is strikingly illustrated by the coins and he is
of course very often named. Sarapis, with the legend serapi (also
SARAPi, SARAPiDi) coMiTi AVG., makes an appearance under
Postumus; thereafter, except for two types of Maximinus Daia,
one with genio avgvsti and the Genius holding a hand of
Sarapis, the other with sou invicto and the sun holding a hand of
Sarapis^, Sarapis is absent till the time of Julian. The coinage of
Diocletian and his associates is primarily interested in Juppiter,
Hercules^, Mars and Sol, and their medallions show a notable
narrowing of the range of gods represented. Thereafter few gods
survive save Sol, the god of transition, whom Constantine would
couple with a Greek cross®.
That is what the coins tell us; we never see on them Attis by
himself or named, and never Juppiter Dolichenus, Dea Suria,
Adonis, Mithras, Osiris, or any of the Syrian Baalim. So if we
look at the names of the ships in the Roman navy, we find Isis
Pharia twice, but no Dea Suria or other Oriental deities.
III. THE EASTERN PROVINCES
The various cultural areas of the Greek-speaking half of the
Empire were tenacious of tradition. During the Hellenistic age
(see pp. 409 5yy.) Egyptian and Syrian cults had established them-
selves in numerous cities outside their lands of origin. Isis and
Sarapis became civic deities, not only at many points in Greece and
the Greek islands and the old Greek fringe in Asia Minor, but also
in as much of Phoenicia as the Ptolemies had controlled: their
worship, and that of Cybele, in Crete date from this period
(vol.xi,p.664). So again Syrian and Thracian cults reached Egypt.
On the other hand, in the Roman period there does not seem to
have been much interchange in the Near East of cults Oriental in
origin. Developed Mithraism is attested in Egypt^, Syria®, Asia
Minor, and Greece, but not on any large scale. The first Mithraeum
at Doura was due to archers from Palmyra, the second to Roman
^ J. Maurice, Numhmatique constantinienne, n, p. 566, in, pp, xxiii, 20,
etc. : :■
® Cf. Milne, op. cit. p. xxxix, for coins with Zeus and Heracles as almost
the sole output of the Alexandrian mint in Diocletian’s seventh year.
® Maurice, op. cit. i, p. 247, cf. N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and
the Christian Church, pp. 97 sqq.
* F. Cumont, Haru. Theol. Rev. xxvi, 1933, p. 1585 E. Breccia, Mem.
inst.frang. Caire, ixvii, 1934—7, pp. sqq.
® F. Cumont, Syria, xiv, 1933, pp. 382 sqq.
XII, hi] the near east 419
legionaries^; in the same way, the sacred cave of Mithras on
Andros was built by a veteran and three soldiers of the Praetorian
Guard (a.d. 202—9). Attis, for whom the native Greek generally felt
a certain repugnance, has left few traces in Egypt and apparently
none in Syria®. The taurobolium was not celebrated at Athens till
the fourth century (see below, p. 425); a Tavpo$( 6 \Lop) is men-
tioned as part of a celebration, apparently of the Traianeia, at
Pergamum in a.d, 105, but we may doubt whether it included the
bath of blood®.
All this is in striking contrast with the vitality of local cults,
more or less hellenized, and of Greek cults. Dionysus was
worshipped widely in Asia Minor and Syria and, it seems, at many
points in Egypt; in Syria he appears well into the hinterland, as in
the Druse country; he merges with the Arab god Dusares, and the
god of some antipathetic Arab tribe was identified with his old
enemy Lycurgus. The actors’ guild (the holy synod of the crafts-
men of Dionysus) was everywhere, and may have counted for
something in this ; but it is far from being the whole story. The
only religious epics written under the Empire were concerned with
the conquests of Dionysus, whose cult flourished strongly in the
Western provinces also, and was closely linked to men’s hopes of
immortality. Heracles was found wherever there were Greeks and
was identified with native gods at Tarsus, in Phoenicia, in Egypt,
in Parthia; he. Aphrodite and Nike are the only Greek religious
types in the art of Doura. The goddess between the two riders
(Helen and the Dioscuri, or an equivalent) is found all over the
Near East, appearing even at Palmyra; she had local affinities in
Anatolia, Artemis Ephesia was worshipped at places widely
distributed over Asia Minor and Syria, as well as in Crete.
In fact the static equilibrium described earlier (p. 410) was very
generally maintained : local cults, whether purely Greek in origin
or native with more or less Greek lacquer, were predominant, and
the only universal phenomena were certain Greek worships, the
cult of the emperor, Judaism, Christianity, and a moderate in-
filtration of philosophy. But the Near East, though retentive of
tradition, was not stationary; intellectually and artistically it was
the creative half of the Empire. It accepted but little from the
1 M. Rostovtzeffi Rom. Mitt, xlix, 1934, pp. 180 sqq.
® On the other hand, the art-type of Cybele appears in Alexandrian
coinage and was copied in Syriaj cf. H. Graillot, Le culte de CybHe, p. 388.
® I.G.R.R. IV, 499. The ravpaffoXta recorded at Ilium, and probably
of about the same date (J. L. Caskey, .dm. youm. Arch. 2nd Ser. xxxix,
1935, pp. 589 ryy.) were clearly of the simple bull-chase variety. '
420 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
West; the emergence of the Capitoline cultus in Egypt after the
Edict of Caracalla^, and the introduction in the fourth century of
the Roman celebration of January i^, are of small moment when
compared with what the East gave to the West. The religious
developments which we shall study in the Western half of the
Empire must in the main be creations of men in or from the Near
East, which, like Christianity, acquired a following in new lands,
where they were deliberately chosen techniques for dealing with
the supernatural and not modifications of an inherited way of life.
Local spirit had its more active, outward-looking aspect, and its
less active parochial aspect. Zeus of Panamara was the god of a
union of cities in Caria, worshipped in annual festival with a
liberal distribution of food and drink, and in the records he is
described as inviting all the world to his banquet®. The worship of
Sarapis at Alexandria was marked by a zeal for propaganda which
appears in accounts of the god’s miracles written down, not only
to be preserved in archives but also to be recited to the faithful.
Isis also had her literature, the so-called ‘Praises,’ a Hellenistic
work extant in various copies^, and a litany or list of titles and
places of worship, in which, as in Apuleius, she is represented as
the object of the adoration of all men®. Alexandria was marked by
contentious piety, in the formation of which anti-Jewish feeling
probably played a part.
On the other hand, if in Egypt we look beyond Alexandria to
the countryside, we see what may be called inertia. The country-
dwellers of the humbler kind were not bothered by fate, or
intellectual curiosity, or the prestige of Isis throughout the world.
They wanted safety in their limited horizon, and they hoped to
get it by rite and charm; they wanted occasionally some refuge
^ Cf, Wilcken-Mitteis, GrundzMge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde,
1, i, p. Ii6.
^ Cf. M. P. Nilsson, Jrch. f. Religimswiss. xix, 1918, pp. $0 sqq.-, also
vol. XI, p. 664 on Fortuna Primigenia in Crete.
® P. Roussel, Bull. corr. hell, li, 1927, p. 129.
^ W. Peek, Der Isishymnus von Andros und verwandte Texte (a new copy,
not earlier than 100 B.c., at Thessalonica has been published by S. Pelekides,
’Atto t^z' TToktreia tcaX rrjv koivwvLo, rrj<; dp^atM<; @€<TaaXovlKr)i;. irapdp-
TTjpLa Tov Sevrepov ropov i'rrc(rrt)povtKfj^ i’lreTrjpiBo^ rfi? (^iXocro<j}CKi]<;
1933, published at Thessalonica 1934, p. 4 sq.).
® P. Oxy. XI, 1380, re-edited by G. Manteuffel, De opusculis Graecis
Aegypti e papyris ostracis lapidihusque collectis (Travaux de la Societe des
Sciences et des Lettres de Varsovie, Classe i, xii, 1930), pp. 70 sqq. For four late
Hellenistic hymns to Ermonthis identified with Isis, discovered at Medinet
MSdi, see A. Vogliano in Puhh, della R. Univ. di Milano, Cairo, 1936.
POPULAR TRENDS
XIL in]
421
from their own littleness and they used magic for this, as also to
secure the satisfaction of their loves and hates. Native Egyptian
religion had always involved the assumption that there was an
infallible procedure for getting what you wanted. So in the
hinterland of Asia Minor and Syria men looked to the local gods
for protection •, that was sufficient ; there was this difference from
Egypt that the Semitic and Anatolian gods were more capricious,
more to be feared, less completely to be controlled, and that the
Semite was capable also of a strong sentiment of dependence on a
hereditary god and of a passionate dogmatism best known in
Judaism but occasionally approached at Palmyra. Christianity
encountered this vigour and this inertia; the inertia lasted longer.
The spirit of these manifestations was strong. Against it we
must set other factors in religious life—the philosophical trend to
henotheism, powerful in East and West alike, the name of Zeus,
the popular tendency to think of the gods as simply power, the
importance of such figures as Nemesis and Tyche, and the
disposition, old in the East, to invest the gods with celestial
attributes and functions. As being behind phenomena in general
and the stars in particular, they could give escape from the iron
bondage of Fate’s decrees. Fate and magic were part of a world
picture which was nearly universaF. Furthermore, many gods
were treated as solar. The philosophic theory which supported this
has already been treated of (vol. xi, p. 646) ; further, in Asia Minor
and the Near East as a whole, the Sun was widely regarded as the
all-seeing god of justice, bringing light and avenging hidden deeds
of darkness; in a hymn found at Susa, at latest of the first century
B.C., he is identified with Dionysus and is the universal lord^.
This mood was not confined to the educated, but it did not
overshadow localism, and learned pagan polemic against Chris-
tianity, while allowing the unity of the divine nature, commonly
stressed the inherent natural rights of national tradition. Such
tradition increasingly asserted itself even against the old supremacy
1 The power of astrological ideas is shown in the dissemination of the
planetary week, on which cf. F. H. Colson, The Week. We see it spreading
in the first century of our era, but in the third Cassius Dio (xxxvrr, 1 8)
thinks it in need of explanation. For Mithraism the week was linked to a
doctrine of seven ages of the world (F. Cumont, Rev. de Phist. des religions,
cm, 1931, pp. 29 ryj.) ; to people in general it was not as important as might
appear.
® F. Cumont, Memoires de la Mission archhlogique en Perse, xx, 1928,
pp. 89 sqq. and M. P. Nilsson, Arch.f. Religimswiss. xxx, 1933, p. 164, and
cf. ib. pp. 141 sqq. for the thinking involved and for the importance of the
solar calendar as making its diffusion possible.
422 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap,
of Greek culture. The East took its revenge for the conquests of
Alexander. We see the rise of Syriac, which had become a literary
language by the addition of Greek words to the vocabulary of
Aramaic, the similar emergence of Coptic from Demotic, the use
of Neophrygian as a language for inscriptions, and the birth, or at
least the epigraphic self-expression, of that strange brotherhood
known as the Xenoi Tekmoreioi^. Meanwhile Philo of Byblus,
the writer of Corpus Hermeticum xvi, and the gnostics whom
Plotinus attacked^ professed to be in cultural rebellion against
Hellas. We can hardly devise a formula to cover these various
phenomena without becoming fanciful: but it remains true that a
certain shift of balance had Tong been happening. From about
200 B.c. the native was asserting himself against the Hellene in
Egypt; in the next century Rome’s cynical laissez-fairem breaking
the Seleucids and ignoring the Euphrates allowed Parthia to
become an apparent counterweight; and then with Mithridates
(and perhaps again with Cleopatra) the East was born as a cause
if not as an entity®. In the third century the Empire found a rival
in the Sassanian kingdom, militant in politics and in religion.
Mani’s disciples carried his words westwards, but his face was set
to the East. The end of all this was Islam.
IV. THE WESTERN PROVINCES
We may now consider the spread of Oriental cults in the Latin-
speaking half of the Roman Empire. Rome was from of old a
borrower in religion, as in art and letters (p- 57 1 sq-)-, and the Roman
West remained a borrower, for all its power of setting its own
stamp on what it borrowed. Rome drew men by the opportunities
which it presented; so did the Western provinces, with the new
wealth and markets which they offered to traders. It is no accident
that Mithraism was so strongly represented in the Danube region,
which offered a rich field for exploitation; while the third Mith-
raeum at Poetovio was built by soldiers, the first and the second
were built by slaves and freedmen in the tax-farming service^. The
trader followed very close on the soldier’s heels even in war, ready
to buy slaves and other booty and to sell wine and oil. The
introduction of cults by individuals and foreign groups was a
different thing from the civic establishment of Egyptian and
Syrian cults in the Hellenistic age, and from the quindecimviral
^ Cf. W. Ruge, in P.W. s.v. Tekmoreioi. ® iij 9; see below, p. 627,
® Cf. E. Norden, Neue Jahrhikher, xxxi, 1913, pp. 656x^7.; W. W.
Tarn, J.R.S. xm, 1932, pp. 135 J??- _
* M. Abramic, Fuhrer durch Poetovio, pp. ibzsqq. and iqzsqq.
XII, IV] ORIENTAL CULTS IN THE WEST 423
establishment of Cybele at Rome. There the community fixed the
form in which a new worship should be celebrated. Here the
worship came as it was, and could retain peculiar features. Another
factor differentiating Roman from Greek culture was that in
Roman practice a manumitted slave became a citizen of his town.
Account may now be taken of certain specific worships. The
worship of Cybele spread apace in Gaul; it made headway also in
Africa, in the frontier provinces, in ports, and along the great
roads, and gained many adherents among provincial and municipal
dignitaries (including not a few of Gallic and Spanish descent):
at the same time, it did not prove equally attractive to men in the
army and in the Imperial service.
Cybele’s acceptance at Rome makes her dissemination in a
measure a part of the spread of Roman culture, and this is the
only Oriental cult for which municipalities constructed temples^.
At the same time, her worship at Rome was not confined to the
official cult, but was conducted also by confraternities, and, though
it was controlled, it was not imposed by authority but carried
abroad by devotees. Further, it did not lose one alien feature —
the gain or men who had castrated themselves and thereafter,
often as wandering mendicants, practised penances and morti-
fications. No Roman citizen had the legal right to enter their
ranks, but the mood of devotion and submission was not confined
to these eunuchs, and was fostered by the splendid ceremonies of
March 15—27, which corresponded to Holy Week and Easter.
Fasting and sorrow and the dies Sanguinis turned into the joy of
the Hilaria, which commemorated the re-animation of Attis. At
the end the Great Mother passed with silent blessing through the
flower-strewn streets to her Lavati(^, The drama of nature’s death
and life has nowhere found a more moving expression in ritual.
The initiations which existed in this worship were private. On
the other hand, the tauroholium and crioholium could be seen by all.
The taurobolium was a ritual act originating in Asia Minor (p. 419)
— bathing in the blood of a bull, which, as the name indicates, must
originally have been captured after a solemn chase. The crioholium.^
which also had Hellenistic precedent at Pergamum^, involved the
r The nearest approach to an exception appears to be the restoration in
A.D. 194 of a temple to Juppiter Dolichenus by the vkani Jquenses (C.I.L.
xiii, 7566®). Cybele’s official standing is further illustrated by the fact that
the guilds called dendrophmri, who carried in procession the tree which was in
a sense Attis, acted also as fire-brigades (see above, p. 31).
^ Cf. Volume of Plates V,
3 O.G.I.S. 764, n. 36. (Some late inscriptions from mons Vaticanus
speak of the rites as combined.)
424 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
use of a ram. In either rite the vires or testicles of the animal were
preserved in a vessel called a kernos. The use and significance of
this bath are so far knov?n to us only from the Western half of the
Roman Empire. At first it may well have been a rite regarded as
effective in itself, and not attached to a particular deity. The
earliest certain known instance in the West, dated in a.d. 134
and found at Puteoli, is associated with the Semitic Venus
Caelestis^: here it is a private ceremony. In later years numerous
commemorative altars dedicated to the great Idaean Mother of the
gods and Attis describe the ceremony as having been performed
on behalf of the Empire or the Emperor or both ex vaticinatione
archigalli And. mdic.z.te that it was under the authority of the
quindecimviri^. The special connotation of the act as done for the
public well-being^ was perhaps due to a specific act of the
quindecimviri, romanizing the practice just as Cybele’s public
ceremonies had been earlier adapted. There is no doubt of the
official endorsement of the practice, for the legal provision is
‘ qui in portu pro salute imperatoris sacrum facit ex vaticinatione
archigalli a tutelis excusatur^.’ Its frequent use may have been
due to anxiety for the Empire and consequent religio.
The tauroholium was celebrated also for the benefit of individuals,
who thereby acquired the status of tauroholiati^ ; the rite was some-
times repeated after twenty years®, but in one of the latest texts,
dating from the Julianic revival’, a recipient appears as ‘reborn
for eternity’: yet an elaborate inscription® of the late period in
which the rite was much used at Rome does in fact suggest that the
tauroholium and criobolium were even then thought of primarily as a
‘thing done,’ as a dromenon rather than a way of securing blessings
for the individual. This is illustrated by the earlier phrase tauro-
bolium movifi, and by the performance of tauroholium or tauro-
bolium and criobolium by pairs or groups of people and even by a
city or a province^®. In any case, this rite, which became notably
^ Dessau 4271 (form used Caelesta). Graillot {op. cit. p. 159) is,
however, probably right in interpreting C.I.L. ii, 179 (Olisipo, a.d. 108)
as the record of a woman’s tauroholium.
2 At Lyons it lasted more than a day; C.I.L. xiir, 1753 ry.
® But note the Pergamene precedent (p. 423).
* Frag, iuris Rom. Vatic. 148. ® C.I.L. vi, 1675.
® Dessau 4153 sq. Dessau 4152 (a.d. 376).
® H. J. Rose, J.H.S. xtin, 1923, pp. 194 sqq.-, xlv, 1925, pp. 180 sqq.
The parallel which he notes to a Persian liturgical formula may be due to
some Iranian apocryphal writing: the present writer cannot see, as many do,
other Iranian influence in the rite.
® Dessau 4118, 4138. Graillot, op. cit. p. 165 sq.
XII, IV] THE CULT OF CYBELE 4^5
popular in Gaul, reached Rome without leaving a trace in Greece
proper: an inscription at Athens, probably of the fourth century,
speaks of the tanrobolium as having been celebrated for the first
time^.
Taurobolic inscriptions show that Rome was thought of as
the centre of the cult. One records the transference of the rite
from Rome to Lyons; others indicate that local authority belonged
to the archigallus, who in the romanized cult need not be a eunuch
or a Phrygian by race: he might be consulted by a neighbouring
town which had no such dignitary, and had high standing as an
inspired person. There were also priests (one or more) elected by
the decuriones: we have a record of the quindecimviral permission
to one at Cumae in 289 to wear his priestly insignia within the
territory of the town^. Further, there were priestesses, sometimes
called ministrae, and confraternities, the cannofhori and dendro-
p/wn (see above, p. 423).
Attis receives not a few other dedications, in some of which he
is identified with Men, another god from Asia Minor, in the form
Attidi Menotyranno^ . Asia Minor gave also the war goddess Ma,
identified with Bellona, an old Roman goddess of whom we know
little. Her cult is said to have been brought back by Sulla’s
soldiers. It was distinguished by the alien ministrations of her
priests, called fanatici, who cut themselves with knives and worked
themselves into frenzies, in which they prophesied. As a rule,
apparently they attracted alms rather than devout attention, but
we find at Mainz a cult-society devoted to the honour of the
Goddess^. In general Cybele and Attis were the predominant
divinities from Asia Minor.
We have seen how Isis and Sarapis gradually won official
sanction. From Flavian times onwards they were, in spite of
occasional expressions of contempt, safely entrenched in the exotic
dignity of their temples. These, like the other temples of the Near
East itself, were elaborate complexes of buildings fitted for the
permanent habitation of a professional clergy and the temporary
lodging of devotees and initiates. They had a daily service, the
1 I.G. Ill, 172.
® Dessau 4131; A. D. Nock, Conversion, p. 285. In C.I.L. vi, 508
(dated 319) members of the college were present and made the traditlo.
Graillot {pp. cit. p. 229) remarks that there is no evidence that the quin-
decimviri thus supervised any of the other cults introduced in accordance with
the Sibylline books, (They can have had no concern with Oriental cults
independently introduced at Rome.)
® F. Cumont, Religions orientale^, p. 58. •
^ Cumont, op. cit. p. 224.
426 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
opening of the shrines and awakening and clothing of the statues;
they had the ceremonial holding up of a vessel containing the
sacred Nile water for adoration; they had congregational singing
and acclamations; they had sacred dances and processions^, and
the great public rite of Ploiaphesia or Navigium Istdis^ intercessions
for the Roman State and libation into the sea at the opening of the
sailing season on March 5 (and we may recall that Isis and Sarapis
had a special interest for sailors as their protectors); they had the
mystery-drama of Osiris ; they had, for the chosen few (and not
necessarily in all temples), initiations. Our evidence suggests that
the priesthood did not possess the civic tone of the worships of the
Egyptian gods established in Greece during the earlier part of the
Hellenistic period, but that it was professional and probably
copied from Alexandria and, whatever the racial origin of its
members, valued Egyptian appearances.
Inscriptions show that the dissemination of the cult was
greatest in parts which had relations with Egypt or which had
foreign and, in particular, military elements^ : there is no evidence
of a Western provincial city giving public homage: the known
worshippers were men from Rome, officials, high or low, freed-
men and slaves; unromanized provincials are hardly found.
Tacitus^, it is true, says that part of the Suebi, who dwelt beyond
the range of Roman power, sacrificed to Isis, but this may be due
to a misunderstanding of the ship’s symbol associated with their
goddess.
So much for the quantitative aspect of this cult. The qualitative
aspect is even more remarkable. A peculiar degree of devotion is
manifested towards Isis and Sarapis; liberality to the shrines
(attested notably by the jewelry presented by a woman to Isis)^;
penitence (shown by sitting before the temple and telling of the
divine punishment for sins, or by such acts of reparation as
breaking the ice on the Tiber and crawling round the Campus
Martius) ; strange acts of piety (getting Nile water from Meroe at
the command of Isis) ; contemplation of the ineffable beauty of the
sacred face of Isis; preservation of the garment of initiation for
one’s burial; meditation on the meaning of initiation. Devotion
to Isis made men call themselves Isiaci. The service of Isis was a
^ Cf. Volume of Plates v, 160, a, h.
® In Africa, Carthage and Lambaesis were the great centres (Cumont,
op. cit. p. 236).
® Germ. 9. Cf. F. Heichelheim in P.W. s,v. Nehalennia. On the identi-
fication of Isis with Noreia cf. vol. xi, p. 553 and v. Petrikovits in P.W.
s,v. Noreia. ^ Dessau 4422.
XII, IV] IGYPTIAN AND SYRIAN CULTS 427
sacred war, entered with a soldier’s undertaking of allegiance.
Isis predominated; Osiris, Anubis, Horus were a divine setting
for her achievements, and Osirian mummification did not travel
with the cult; Sarapis was important, as a god of miracles; and
from Flavian times he was commonly identified with the Sun.
One other borrowing from Egypt may be mentioned— the
festival of the Pelusia on March 20, which was taken from the
celebration at Pelusium, and included ritual bathing, like the
Maioumas, which was carried from Antioch to Ostia.
The official acceptance of Syrian worships has been discussed
earlier (see above, p. 4 1 7 sf.). What of the infiltration of Syrian cults
in a private way.? The Syrian slave came early to the West; the
Syrian trader followed. We have remarked earlier on the particular
attachment of the Semite to his ancestral worships; the Tyrian
group at Puteoli retained its cults and its devotion to them and
to Tyre in 1 74^. It is not surprising to find at Corduba an altar
dedicated in the second century to Syrian deities by people of
Syrian names^; a record of a Salambo procession at Seville®; a
temple to the hereditary god of the men of Gaza (apparently
Mamas) at Ostia'* ; Juppiter Damascenus and Dusares worshipped
at Puteoli ; Zeus Kasios at times in the W est® ; a dedication at Rome
to Hypsiste Astarte®; successive temples to Syrian deities on
the Janiculum, with an inscription perhaps rightly explained as
referring to sacred communal meals'^ ; a small area in Rome called
Adonaea on a third-century plan; numerous dedications to Jup-
piter Dolichenus, including the description of the members of a
guild of his as fratres carissimiy chosen by him to serve him®, and
the existence of a cenatorium of his at Bononia®.
Dedications to the last-mentioned god are widespread and
include many by soldiers; they may be regarded as in the main a
result of the Flavian garrisoning of the Eastern frontier (vol. xr,
p. 140). Formal cults of the Syrian deities in the Western provinces
are in fact mainly confined to military regions, and their worshippers,
1 O.G.I.S. 595; G. La Piana, Harv. TheoL Rev. xx, 1927, pp. 256 sqq.
® F. Cumont, Syria, v, 1924, p. 342 sq.
s Ik vni, 1927, pp. 330 sqq. _
C.I.G. 5892; Cumont, Religions orientah^, p. 253.
® A. SalaS, Bull. corr. hell. XLVX, 1922, pp. 187 sqq.
® Not. degli scavi, 1935, pp. 91 sqq,
’ See Cumont, C.R. Ac. Inscr. 1917, pp. 275 sqq.
® Dessau 4316.
® Dessau 4313. For a recently discovered temple at Rome with important
sculptures see A. M. Colini in Bull, CoTrm. Arch, lxiii, 1935, PP- i 45 -f?f-
428 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
■when not of the army, are for the most part Oriental in origin. Of
course, the eunuch priests who begged for the Syrian goddess
circulated widely, and men gave to them fearing the power of their
curse, perhaps hoping for a blessing^; but this did not establish
cultus or religious habits, and this goddess does not seem often
to have received from non-Syrians a devotion such as was paid
willingly to Isis by non-Egyptians. Dacia has one inscription to
Dea Suria, Germany none. An exception is the dedication to the
Syrian goddess found by the Roman Wall in Britain, identifying
her with Justice and speaking of the revelation by which the
soldier responsible for the record had learned her might^ ; but the
wording makes it clear that Julia Domna’s prestige had opened
the channel of grace.
We pass to Mithraism. Mithras, the Persian god of light,
appears as the object of a special cult at Gurob in the Fayhm in
the third century b.c. (doubtless at some shrine maintained by a
group of Persians who had remained in Egypt after the end of
their rule); the nature of this worship is unknown. Plutarch tells
how the pirates, against whom Pompey warred, celebrated certain
secret sacrifices to Mithras on the Cilician mountains. The cult,
as we know it, certainly took its rise in parts of Asia Minor where
Iranian elements had remained strong in the population, as in
Cappadocia.
We learn something from allegorical explanations of Mithraism,
as in Porphyry, and from Christian attacks on it, but our know-
ledge is in the main derived from the material remains of the wor-
ship ; from the temples at Doura, at Rome, Ostia and other sites in
Italy, in Britain, and along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. They
are built in a shape intended to give the likeness of a cave, with a
bas-relief on a pedestal in a niche at the end, benches for the
worshippers to recline, sculptured and sometimes pictorial deco-
rations, and a water-supply for purifications®. The iconography has
local variations but is on the whole curiously constant. The bas-relief
shows Mithras slaying the bull, from which comes the life of the
earth’s crops. The formal model is the earlier type of Nike sacri-
ficing a bull, but the scene has a cosmic significance and its place in
the centre of the shrine emphasizes that Mithraism had a mythical
^ C£ the collection box for ‘lady Atargatis,’ F. Cumont, Arethuse,
fasc. xxvii (1930), pp. 41 sqq,% P. Perdrizet, Syria, xii, 1931, pp. 267 sqq.'.
Volume of Plates v, 1 62, a,
® F. Buecheler, Carm. Lot. epig. 25. Cf. C.I.L. xm, 6671, for what
seems to be a dedication to Julia Domna, under Caracalla, as Caelestis dea,
® See Plan i, facing p. $70.
XII, IV] MITHRAISM 429
cosmogony of its own and a content of ideas on which it was easy
to graft further interpretation. On either side stand Cautes and
Cautopates, attendant spirits of light, and the whole is framed in
a series of panels giving the god’s Fita\ his birth from the rock,
his shooting at a rock and production of rain, his chase and capture
of the bull, his reception of the Sun-god’s homage, his sacred meal
with the Sun-god^.
These impressive candle-lit shrines witnessed ceremonies of
initiation and ritual meals. Jerome describes seven grades of
initiation, the believer becoming successively corax, nymph(t)us^,
miles^ leo^ Persa, heliodromus znA pater. A statement in Porphyry^
suggests some local variation of terminology. We know a little
of the ceremonies, some of which are represented in drawings on
the walls of a Mithraeum at S. Maria di Capua^. There was at
some point a simulated death; at another the miles was olfered a
wreath on a sword and refused it saying ‘ Mithras is my wreath,’
and thereafter refusing to wear wreaths at banquets. Furthermore,
the initiates shared in their sacred meals a continuing religious life;
and there was no professional priesthood, leadership being vested
in members who had reached the highest grade as patres. Men
alone were admitted; a possible exception, if it proves valid, will
represent one of the varieties of Mithraism®.
Among the points in which Mithraism differed from the other
‘mystery religions®,’ there is one of the greatest importance. For
the Egyptian, Syrian, and Anatolian cults of this type which
travelled westwards the primary ceremony was the cult-drama, re-
enacting what had happened and what in a sense annually hap-
pened to the god. This was open to all worshippers and not only
to initiates; initiations were something additional, not available
at all times, in all shrines or to any who could not pay enough’.
In Mithraism the initiatory ceremonies were in the foreground
from the earliest phase of which we have knowledge, and there
was no annual rite of a dramatic kind. Mithras was not born
annually and did not die and he had a complete Fita. There was
1 See Volume of Plates v, 1 62, b.
® Not, as emended, cryphius: cf. F. Cumont, C.R. Ac. Inscr. I934»
p. 107 sq.-, M. Rostovtzeff, Rom. Mitt, xtxx, 1934, p. 206. New light on
the terminology will be available when the graffiti of the Doura Mithraeum
are published. ® de ahstin. iv, 16.
* A. Minto,iVijr. degliscavi, I924,pp. 3531^^.5 Volume of Plates v, 164,*.
5 Cf. Buckler-Calder-Cox, J.R.S. xiv, 1924, p- 31.
® Cf. A. D. Nock, y.R.S. xxvii, 1937, pp. loSsqq.
’ Cf. Nock, Conversion, pp. 56 sqq.
430 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
no ceremony which could be made into a public rite, and Mithras
never became a civic god. Mithraea might, as at Augusta
Treverorum and Poetovio, be built near other shrines^; they
might be the object of devotion of a domestic^ or military unit;
but the cult and the temples were always private. This worship, by
its own vitality, retained its forms over a wide range of space and
time, without hierarchy or quindecimviral control.
Mithraswasthegodwho, beyond all others, mattered most to the
believer. He was a principal actor in the making of the world, and
would be in its eventual re-making (an idea present in Mithraism
though perhaps less prominent than in early Zoroastrianism), and,
what was more, he was the protector here and now, and would be
after death, of the man who received his rites and lived worthily of
them; moral demands were stressed. Occasionally he was identi-
fied with Zeus and must therefore have been considered as the
Supreme Being. In native Persian ideas, which appear to have
predominated, he was neither the supreme nor the only god.
Above him stood Ahura Mazda, who could be translated as
Juppiter Caelus, a god too high for our common prayers, and now
remote from the battle — not (as for Zoroaster) commander of the
faithful. Behind Mithras stood Zervan akarana, infinite time,
who may well be the subject of the representations (following an
Orphic type) which we sometimes find in Mithraea; for a Greek
he was probably Kronos®. Ahura Mazda had his opposite
Ahriman, and this god — as god of death rather than of evil in any
abstract sense — receives dedications in some Mithraea, just as
earlier the Magi had made special sacrifices to him.
The worship of Mithras did not exclude other worships. A
powerful impetus, such as that which manifests itself in the
expansion of Mithraism, could not fail to make it for some
adherents a focal point round which their other religious practices
were grouped ; and there was nothing to prevent individuals from
indulging the deep-seated instinct for a diversification of forms. We
see this instinct in Christianity ; it had freer scope in Mithraism.
Mithraism had ideas, power and qualities which differentiated
it from the other Oriental cults which were at the same time actively
followed. It is small wonder if Justin Martyr and Tertullian
^ But at Augusta Treverorum two altars have the phrase ‘‘in suo posuif
(S. J-Axschcke, Die Erf orschung des Tempelbezirkes im Althachtale Trier,
p. 36). Inferences from the juxtaposition of shrines are insecure.
® E.g. the domus Augustana whose pater et sacerdos is mentioned early in
the third century; Dessau 4270.
® A. D. Nock, Harv. Theol. Rev. xxvii, 1934, p. 79.
Xn, v] UNIVERSAL FACTORS 431
regarded it as a diabolic copy of Christianity. Where it was
powerful— as at Ostia, Heddernheim and Poetovio — ^it was very
powerful. But it made its appeal only along certain lines; it
omitted vast areas of the Empire: above all, it was weak in those
very regions in which Christianity spread with particular strength.
The absence of women deprived it of the support of what was in
antiquity, as it is to-day, the sex more interested in religious
practices of any and every kind. It lived on its ideas and its
emotional force; it had not, like Egyptian and Syrian cults, local
nuclei of men to whom it was a national religion.
V. TENDENCIES IN POPULAR PIETY
We have considered the two halves of the Empire in so far as
they differed. Some things were common to both — the existence
of private guilds, serving religious, funerary, and social purposes,
the cult of the emperor, the astrological picture of the universe,
the practice of magic, and philosophy. The cult of the emperor
was in the East built upon earlier institutions, in the West it was
deliberately introduced (vol.x, chap. xv). Yet in spite of this and
in spite of local and temporal variation (e.g. vol. xi, p. 561), it
remained a universal fact ; everywhere men looked towards him who
stood between humanity and the gods, everywhere he was at one
and the same time thesubjectof innumerablevows andtheobject of
an unmeasured homage which took the forms of divine adoration
because there were none higher; everywhere the emperor’s name
was used in solemn oaths. The ruler of the world was associated
with the gods; he was also chosen by the gods, or by the Sun in
particular: they went with him on his ways. The intensity of this
emotion deepened and found new expressions^.
mox crescit in illos
imperium superis.
Everywhere, above the emperor, there was Fate and its decrees,
written in or by the stars in their courses^. Everywhere there were
similar attempts to break these decrees by magic — the same
formulas in Syria and Egypt and Moesia and the Rhineland and
Italy. Everywhere those who sought an interpretation of life
looked to philosophy.
1 Cf. A. Alfoldi in Rom. Mitt, l, 19^5, pp. 85, 94, 107, iig. The
Christian emperors continued to hold this exalted position, and retained
many of its expressions.
2 See above, p. 421.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE [ghap.
These things, and the local components in the piety of each
place, made a constant background. In the provinces of Latin
speech this was modified by the second wave of Oriental cults.
Certain worships of Near Eastern origin proved able to bear a
generalized significance and made a powerful impact. They spread
above all among the mobile elements of the population and in
cities and regions where mobile elements were strong^. Cybele
and Isis apart, they made little impression outside those elements
and cities and regions. The Western provinces had received ancient
culture, as they received the worship of the emperor, ready-made.
Accordingly, they combined Rome’s worships, which came like
Rome’s language, with their native cults. The ignorant probably
pursued their old practices, as is shown by later survivals: those
of more wealth and cultivation, who could make dedications, gave
to their ancestral gods Roman names, often made specific by the
addition of local epithets (as for instance Mars Cocidius), and
Graeco-Roman art-types suitably modified^.
Some deities preserved their native entity. In Gaul (vol. xi,
pp. 507 jy., 518 sg.) and Britain the organization of Celtic religion
by Druidism disappeared, but Epona and Rosmerta and the
goddesses called Matres or Matronae were distinct in name as in
art-type from the usual pantheon. In Africa (cf. vol. xi, p,
the Punic deities retained very considerable power, which corre-
sponded to the age, tenacity, and development of the civilization
to which they belonged. Saturnus was a native deity; Caelestis,
whose native name was Tanit, was in fact the Carthaginian
equivalent of the Dea Suria: the worship of Liber in this province
appears to have been the romanization of a native god: the
Cereres were perhaps also native®. Here as in Thrace native piety
1 F. Cumont {Les mysthes de Mithrc?, p. 64) has observed that the
absence of clear evidence for Mithras at Puteoli can be explained from the
fact that at the time when Mithraism was rising the commercial importance
of Puteoli was declining; contrast the place which it occupied at Ostia.
R. M. Peterson, The cults of Campania, p, 214, remarks on the smaller de-
velopment of Oriental cults at Neapolis, which was not a great port in the
late Republic and under the Empire, and which also had a firmly rooted
Greek civilization. L. R. Taylor, Local cults in Etruria, p. 249, notes that
the only Syrian worship represented in Etruria is that of Juppiter Dolichenus
(on his dissemination cf. above, p. 427; Sol juvans at Pyrgi, Taylor, op. cit.
p. 127, maybe an old local indigenous cult). On the other hand, Mithraism
was here more widely diffused than in Southern Italy.
® There was creativeness also: cf M. P. Nilsson, ‘Zur Deutung der
Juppiter-gigantensaulen,’ Jirch.f. Religionswiss. xxiii, 1925, pp. 175 sqq.
3 Cf Cumont, Religions orientalesf, p. 200, on this and on Liber and
Liber in Illyria as a native divine pair superficially romanized.
XII, V] NATIVE CULTS. THE ARMY 433
remained very strong in spite of the incoming of alien religious
elements; Thracian piety, which had a notable power of fusion
with alien elements, appears in Dacia and occasionally in Pann-
onia (vol. XI, p. 552). For Spain (vol. xi, p. 498) our evidence is
scanty, but some indigenous cults are attested, although romaniza-
tion was much older here than in Gaul outside Narbonensis.
Otherwise Roman names and Roman forms seem to have been
of the nature of a superimposed thing and primarily a cultural
phenomenon. Mercurius in Gaul is essentially Celtic rather than
Roman.
The vitality of native worships in the West is clear and did not
wholly disappear when Christianity became the official religion.
Roman soldiers, and even dignitaries (vol xr, p. 538) did not
hesitate to make dedications to and Matronae or Noreia,
but neither in Gaul nor in Spain nor in Africa do such dedications
bulk large numerically, and there is in general a marked divergence
between the religious interests of provincials and of administrators^.
Celtic and Germanic deities did not travel like those of the Near
East^. Even the Celtic Epona, who had a foothold in the Celtic
element in North Italy and whose guardianship of horses gave
her a function of general utility, though worshipped by men who
had no Gallic blood, did not develop into anything new and cos-
mopolitan. Once more, that is the difference between romanization
and hellenization. Slaves, traders, officials, and soldiers brought
influences from their original homes, andalsofrom the capital. The
halo around the Eternal City grew brighter in the years of stress ;
in religion, as in the Forma Orbis, all roads start in Rome.
No cultural factor was of more importance than the army.
Something has been said of its religion in an earlier volume
(vol. X, p. 483 jy.). We have there seen the difference between its
fundamental institutions and those of city life. A Roman camp
had its military sacra, its auspices, its observance of the Saturnalia.
Nevertheless, it was originally no more than the place where an
army halted. The situation changed when the system of frontier
defences caused legions to be immobilized in castra stativa with
dependent civilian settlements®. The troops, recruited on the spot,
^ J. Toutain, Les cultes patens dans I'empire romain, i, pp. 466 sqq.
Caracalla seems to have taken an interest in the Celtic Apollo Grannus
(Dio Lxxviir, 15, 6).
* On the other hand, the Carthaginian cult of Caelestis, which was
akin to Syrian piety, obtained a certain dissemination (F. Cumont in
P.W., s.v.).
® Cf. vol. XI, pp. 442 sqq. and Toutain, op. cit. ii, pp. 25 sq., 62 sq.
cji.H.xn -28
434 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
had a local colour; they lacked the conservative factor of domestic
cult, for they were olEcially celibate till the time of Septimius
Severus, and it was natural that they should welcome religious
groupings around new powerful divinities. Further, they received
new impulses from the movements of vexillationes, from the
transference of centurions on their promotion, and from the
fashions of the Imperial house. Their habits, and the influence of
their habits were perpetuated by the frequency with which, after
serving their time, they settled near the camps in which they had
been stationed (cf. vol. xi, p. 443). Military culture and military
religion thus assumed a permanent condition^.
Nevertheless, we must not exaggerate the extent to which the
religion of the army and of other foci of mobile life diverged from
native Roman practice. The Feriale Duranum mentions no festivals
save those of old Roman deities and commemorations of the
Imperial house.^ In Mogontiacum, Heddernheim, Colonia
Agrippinensis, and Vetera, dedications to Oriental deities amount
to slightly more than 14 per cent, of all dedications — and that in
spite of the fact that new cults were more apt than old cults to
inspire permanent records of piety. Furthermore, while temples
to the Capitoline triad were very common in the Latin-speaking
provinces, private dedications to it come in the main from the
military and from Imperial functionaries, and dedications to
Juppiter Optimus Maximus are most frequent in the frontier
provinces; among the dedicators soldiers predominate. As for
Rome itself, dedications to Hercules and Silvanus, the latter of
whom perhaps indicates by his popularity the rise of Italian
countryside elements, considerably exceed in number those to any
Oriental deities^. Both were notably popular with the army, and,
in the West, with provincials. We must not forget the frequency of
dedications by non-Romans to Roman deities or to fully romanized
deities of Greek extraction^. Thus inscriptions from the Syrian
shrine on the Janiculum® couple the Zeus Keraunios (here a
Baal) with the Nymphae Forrinae (i.e. Furrinae), Receptivity was
not on one side only.
Let us pass from the quantitative aspect of the spread of
Oriental cults to its qualitative aspects. To many men to whom
1 Cf. A. S. Hoey, Harv. TheoL Rev. xxx, 1937, pp. 15 sqq.
® To be published in Tale Class. Stud.
® V. Macchioro, Rev. arch, iv S6r. ix, 1907, p. 143.
* Ih. pp. 272 sqq.-, cf. the Republican evidence from Minturnae discussed
by A. D. Nock, Amer. Jour. Phil, vn, 1935, p. 90.
® P Gauckler, Le sanctuaire syrien du Janicule, pp. 18, 57.
XII, V] PAGAN THEOLOGY 435
such practice was not hereditary and indigenous these worships
may well have meant the satisfaction of their desires for im-
mortality, for a more dignified status in the universe, for an
escape from Fate, for the opening of windows in heaven; to some
they meant vocation and divine guidance and militia sacra\ to
Lucius they meant a new life, with purpose and meaning^. But to
most men who used them they were probably no more than an in-
teresting extra, another and perhaps a more effective way of access
to the supernatural ; exacting penances^, speaking with authority
and differing from traditional worships in that they involved
a chosen personal relationship with the deities concerned.
The cults had their myths, the appeal and significance of which
must not be underestimated, as well as their rites, both subject to
moderate change, and both were capable of interpretation in
accordance with the philosophies of the time. Mithraism, indeed,
had its cosmogony and its eschatology, but the cults in general
had no theology in our sense of the word save what was read into
them by educated devotees; Stoic physics and Orphic® and
Pythagorean ideas of the soul and of its destiny as re-worked by
Plato, were of particular influence; so was the notion that the level
of the stars was the true homeland of man’s spirit. Plutarch’s Isis
and Osiris (cf. p. 439) records interpretations of Egyptian myths as
expressing intellectual and psychological experience. These have
special interest because of their closeness to some of Philo’s
allegories; but they were not canonical interpretations, universally
accepted, and ‘physical’ interpretations also existed^. Again,
henotheistic tendencies in thought found expression in piety®. A
modicum of philosophic ideas was a very common possession, and
the cults, philosophically interpreted, could give supernatural
authority to widespread notions, for the gods were ‘guardians of
the soul and mind®.’
The priest’s address to Lucius in Apuleius’^, with its severe
condemnation of the hero’s youthful self-indulgence and its call to
self-dedication, shows that the cult of Isis could thus reinforce
^ Apuleius, Met. xi.
2 Cf. R. Pettazzoni, Harv. Theol. Rev, xxx, 1937, pp- i
® Orphic literature was much quoted, and there is an Orphic lamella of
the second century (O. Kern, Orphicorum fragmenta, p. 108, no. 32^), but
whether actual Orphic communities existed under the Empire is very
doubtful. The reference to a community in the Orphic Hymns may be a
literary convention.
* Cf. H. R. Schwyzer, Chairemm', P. Oxy. xi, 1381, 11 . 170 sqq.
® Cumont, Religions orientale^, p. 270.
® Dessau 41475 cf. C.LL. xii, 1277. Met. xx, 15.
436 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
morality: self-denial was exacted by other cults^. Mithras is
usually thought to have set the highest standards and could be an
example of vigorous combative action as well as of purity.
In general, the Oriental cults were symptomatic of change
rather than productive of it. They have been supposed to have
served the ends of autocracy: more significant, however, is the
observed fact that some of their expressions of devotion appear
to reflect the linguistic and artistic idioms of a loyalism already
aroused on other grounds^. Solar theology did very possibly
make a contribution to the complex of ideas and emotions tending
to exalt the^mce^j, but solar theology had its roots in philosophy
and, while reinforced by the piety of various cults, did not depend
only on them. Again, the spread of the Oriental cults was probably
a result rather than a cause, even a contributory cause, of inter-
mixture and racial levelling; the most striking instance of this in
the religious sphere is, after all, the second-century Dionysiac
association at Tusculum, in the members’ list of which freemen
and slaves alike are described by their bare cognomint^. The
sarcophagi of the period are a warning against exaggerations of the
power of the Oriental cults: although in representations of the
seasons Attis sometimes stands for winter, there are hardly any
other traces of the Eastern deities^. The mourning Attis is com-
mon on other funerary monuments®: he could typify the fate
awaiting all, even the young and lovely: perhaps there was also
some hope that, like Attis, the dead man might not remain in the
power of death. Otherwise, the appearance of the Oriental deities
in art in general is all but confined to terracotta and bronze
figurines and monuments definitely associated with their worship
or presumably dedicated to the memory of their ministrants®.
Novelty was not lacking, but it was in the main a matter of a
change of atmosphere (see below, p. 448) or individual innovations
or changes of emphasis, until we come to the latter part of the
third century and the first part of the fourth, when we find
certain attempts to strengthen paganism in the face of what had
^ Cf. Cumont, op. cit. pp. 35 sqq. ^ lb. p. xi.
® Cumont- Vogliano, Jmer. Journ. Arch., 2nd Ser. xxxvii, 1933, pp.
215 sqq. (especially p. 234).
* See Cumont in Bull, de I’ Inst, archeologique liSgeots, xxix, 190 1.
® Volume of Plates V, 164, A. D. Nock, Theol. Rev. xxv, 1932,
p. 338; F. Cumont (fi.R. Ac. Inscr. 1906, p. 75, n. i) regards the polos of
the dead man on some Greek bas-reliefs as in effect assimilating him to
Sarapis.
® For an exception see representations of Egjrptian culms as local colour
in paintings.
XII, V] SYNCRETISM 437
become a tremendous opposition. Thus a pious individual at
Acmoneia in Phrygia founded a cult of the ‘immortal gods^.’
Nevertheless, the whole development of Imperial paganism has
only one feature as striking and significant as the spread of
Dionysiac religion or of Orphism — and that is the rise of solar
theology.
What then of the syncretism or theokrasia which has been so
often discussed ? Some have suggested that the various deities of
paganism fused into a few figures or melted into a general nimbus
of orientalized godhead. In this suggestion there is both truth and
falsehood. Greek thinkers had from early times supposed that the
pantheons of all nations consisted of gods performing like functions
and that these divine persons corresponded to one another, that
Ammon was Zeus, and so forth. This theory did not in the
popular mind destroy differences of identity; Alexander paid a
visit to Ammon as Ammon and not as Zeus. Further, there had
been even earlier much give and take between kindred divine
figures in Syria and Anatolia, to an extent which makes it im-
possible for us, and probably made it impossible for ancient wor-
shippers, to draw clear distinctions; such exchange sometimes
involved purely stylistic features, but could go deeper. Again, the
depth of emotion excited by Isis, una quae es omnia^., myrionyma^y
caused far-reaching identification (p. 420) and this was not pe-
culiar to her; even Hermes or Priapus could be treated as a
universal cosmic god. In such identifications it was assumed that
the native name, whether Isis or Dea Suria, was the verum nomen^
the other divine titles being what we might call dialect variations.
Add to these factors the widespread generalizing trend noted
earlier, and the common tendency to invest any prominent god
with solar attributes, and you have enough to account for a
considerable blurring of the edge of divine personalities.
On the other hand, local pride and local devotion acted as
limiting factors, and the continued existence of the old names
and of individualized types meant the continued existence of
distinct entities. Isis and Magna Mater shared a temple at Lacus
Benacus^’’, a priestess at Aeclanum, a priest at Ostia®; but they
^ F. Cumont, Cat. des sculptures ei inscriptions des Musics du Cinquan-
tenaire, ed. 2, pp. 158 sqq.-, H. Grdgoire, Byzantion, viii, 1933, pp. 49 sqq.
Cf. Buckler-Calder-Cox in J.R.S. xiv, 1924, p. 25; E. Williger, Hagios,
p. 95, on possible Christian influence on a cult in Isauria.
^ Dessau 4362. ^ Ib. note on 4361.
* C.LL. V, 4007.
® L. R. Taylor, Local Cults in Etruria, p. 80 sq, :
438 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
were distinct, and the result was not a composite product such as
Hermanubis. Juppitersummusexsuperantissimus was highest, but
that would for many imply gods, as well as men and things, below
him. There are dedications (from the second century b.c. onwards)
and art-types of a pantheistic kind^ ; some of these imply a concept
of divine unity, but others involve no more than the old desire to
ensure safety by neglecting no god; in a certain number we may
suspect an element oi jeu d'esprifi. The habit of grouping and
identifying deities may have contributed to a decline in attention
to the minutiae oi the custom which assigned one victim to one god
and one to another. Nevertheless, subordination and identification
did not destroy the gods; sometimes in the last struggle with
Christianity it supplied an apologia for their worship. The de-
velopment at issue seems to have come from above; and such
dedications in the Western provinces as are its expressions are
predominantly from soldiers of the higher ranks or from their
military dependents, and from Imperial slaves and freedmen®.
VI. PAGANISM IN THOUGHT
When we look at literature after a.d. 69, we find in Pliny the
Elder a hard rationalism with a deep-felt wonder at the universe,
in Epictetus a naked morality invested with a warmth of theistic
emotion (vol. xi, pp. 694 Jfy.), in the Neopythagorean Apollo-
nius of Tyana asceticism and piety, in Dio of Prusa deep moral
earnestness and contemplative piety, in Statius and Martial
awareness of Oriental cult. Juvenal, as a satirist, handles the
traditional topic of women’s superstition with special reference to
these alien worships.
This is all fairly conventional. Nevertheless, a change of mood
was taking place. Tacitus occupied a middle ground, interested in
fate and freewill, ready to speak of a Parthian cult, concerned even
with the past of the Judaism which he hated. Plutarch (vol. xi,
^ V. Macchioro, Rev. arch, iv S6r., ix, 1907, p. 266, n. i; R. Dussaud,
Monuments Riot, xxx, 1929, p. 83 (on Graeco- Asiatic deities represented
with the addition of busts from the Graeco-Roman pantheon); J. G. Milne,
Catalogue of Jlexandrian coins. . p. xxix; A. D. Nock, J.H.S. xlv, 1925,
p. 90, and Conversion, p. 136 sq.', F. Cumont in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v.
Panthea.
® Cf. the hymn to Attis sung in theatres and interpreted esoterically by
the Naassenes (Hippolytus, Refutatio, v, 9), a paignion probably of Hadrianic
date (see below, p. 446) and Ausonius, Epigr. 48 sq.
® Cf. Toutain, op. cit. ii, p. 248; ih. p. 255 on the importance of Rome
as a focus.
PLUTARCH
XII, VI]
439
pp. 696 sqq^ stands on one side of this middle ground, Meso-
medes further on the same side, Lucian thereafter on the other.
Plutarch in his youthful essay On superstition, speaks of the two
errors, atheism and superstition, with an inclination to regard the
former as the less insulting to divinity; he mentions sabbath
observance, but without any marked discrimination between it
and some Greek practices. The main body of his work is inspired
by a lofty piety, a faith in divine providence and justice as shown
in reward and punishment; a dislike of crude and barbarous
deeds, whether done in the name of religion or otherwise; a
devotion to ancestral rites; an interest in the soul’s destiny; and
a questioning spirit which continually asks why — ^why are oracles
silent? why do the Jews abstain from pork? is the god of the Jews
identical with Dionysus^ ? Plutarch shows throughout a profound
belief in the brotherhood of man and the unity of the divine; all
men seeking the divine, all using symbols of various kinds. Thus
in his work On Isis and Osiris, dedicated to a friend Clea who had
been initiated in these mysteries as well as in those of Dionysus,
he studies the names and myths and public ceremonies of these
and other Egyptian gods, finding in them the same meanings as
in Greek cults. He speaks of the believer as searching out after-
wards by reason the meaning of that which he has received in
mystery. Meanwhile Mesomedes showed his ingenuity in glori-
fying various deities including Isis for whom ‘all things are
danced^.’
To Plutarch most Greek, Roman and Oriental rites were good,
created in the mythical past by wise men whose insights included
all the best that posterity later came to learn ; and the science of
god was the crown of philosophy. To Lucian Greek and Oriental
rites were alike worthless survivals. Much of his writing is light-
hearted fooling at the expense of myth and rite (including the
scene of supposed Magian necromancy by the Euphrates); but
in the Philopseudes, the Alexander, and the Concerning the death of
Peregrinus, he speaks from the heart®. There is no gaiety, but the
bitter seriousness of the Syrian who has found that nearly all his
Greek contemporaries have forsaken reason^. Although he re-
^ Cornelius Labeo, whose date is uncertain, represents a similar learned
interest.
2 K. Horna, ‘Die Hymnen des Mesomedes,’ Wien. Sitz. ccvir, 1928, i,
p. 13. The Pervigilium Veneris, whatever its date (p. 5 ^^)> illustrates the
generalizing trend. ® Cf. vol. xi, pp. 686 sqq.
^ Cf. a papyrus of a.d. 150-200 (W. Schubart, Hermes, lv, 1920, pp.
188 sqq), in which Apollo’s daims were apparently vindicated by mirade.
440 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
presents the gods as complaining of the new barbarian invaders of
Olympus^, he does not suggest that a particular credulity was
connected with the cult of certain gods; apart from his Herodotean
Concerning the Syrian he had not much to say
about the Oriental cults to which this chapter is devoted. His
attitude is like that of Celsus, who in his True Word^ compares the
Ghristians with worshippers of the Great Mother, Mithras, and
Sabazios.
The almost contemporary rhetorician Aelius Aristides is con-
spicuous for his attachment to the deities who delivered him from
persistent ill-health, as also for a strong philosophic trend towards
monotheism. He wrote a prose hymn to Sarapis, concerned with
the god’s miracles, but he shows no interest in the hereafter and
does not mention other Oriental deities. Nor does Maximus of
Tyre, whose reflective piety shows what his audience liked.
Lucian in his Philofseudes introduces a superstitious philosopher,
and this may remind us that Apuleius thought of himself as
fhilosophus Platonicus and is so described in a dedication by the men
of his town®. His novel, the Metamorphoses (see p. 580 sq.'), reveals
the depth of devotion which could be excited by the goddess of
many names: an ending in miracle and piety replaces the ironic
humour of the Greek original. Its undeniable autobiographic
note fits what we learn from the Apologia, 'TYiete, Apuleius defends
himself against a charge of magic: he is obviously not too anxious
to rebut the suggestion of occult interests, and happy to speak of
how he had been initiated in a whole series of mysteries, studio
veri^. He refers to a lost speech devoted to these initiations. His
philosophic side appears in his other works (p. 581 sq.), and pre-
sumably he was not conscious of any marked inconsistency.
Philosophy became more and more linked to piety and revela-
tions, and less averse from magic. Neopythagoreanism was the
pioneer both in its asceticism and in this development (vol. x,
p. 507), which at times brought the atmosphere of a seance into
the philosopher’s room, and Neopythagoreanism was succeeded
by the revival of Platonism in the second century. This revival,
commonly called Middle Platonism, regarded Plato’s work in
general and some treatises in particular (above all the Timaeus)
^ Deorum concilium, g; luppiter trag. 8 (where the alien gods are described
as having much richer statues than the Greek gods).
® Cf. Origen, contra Celsum, 1, 9.
® Apulee, Apologie: Florida, ed. P. Vallette, p. vii.
* Apuleius carried to considerable lengths a tendency for which there
are parallels: cf. A. D. Nock, Conversion, pp. 107 sqq.
XII, VI] GRJU, TEUERER FREUND, 1 ST JLLE THEORIE 441
as a storehouse of inspired truth. Special emphasis was laid on his
doctrine of the One, on his dualism of soul and body, on his myths
of the after-life (taken as dogma), on his theory of daimones as
beings intermediate between god and man, on his ideas of divine
transcendence and inspiration, on his statement that man’s goal is
to become like god, on his doctrine of Ideas as involving the
supposition of a whole world of objects above the world of the
senses, on the contrast which he, like other philosophers, made
between the few and the many.
Hard thinking and dialectics had a place in this philosophy, but
much of its appeal was to the heart and to the soul rather than to
the head. In influential circles an inturned piety which offered to
the Supreme Being the ‘sacrifice of reason,’ and an ascetic salva-
tionism overshadowed Greek self-sufficiency’^. The inspired
teacher and the divine revelation were in the foreground. As
teachers we have Pythagoras, of whom various lives were written,
and Plato and Apollonius as portrayed by Philostratus®, largely
in the image of Pythagoras. As revelations we have the Her-
metic writings, which may be dated from about a.d. ioo on-
wards, the ‘Chaldaic Oracles,’ probably of the time of Marcus
Aurelius®, which introduced theurgia or philosophical occultism,
and the Mosaic cosmogony, as used not only by Numenius of
Apamea but also up and down the Hermetica, the theological
oracles ascribed to Claros^, the kindred oracles used by Porphyry,
of whom we are about to speak, and the supposed revelations of
Protesilaus to a vine-tender in the Troad, as described by Philo-
stratus in his Heroicu^.
Practical men, like Cassius Dio, clung to the gospel of action,
and not all philosophers turned their gaze from the world. But
creativeness, apart from the development of pagan henotheism®,
lay in this direction and produced in early Neoplatonism some-
thing which had an enduring influence. A young philosopher.
Porphyry of Ascalon, who had been a Christian but returned to
paganism, wrote a treatise Philosophy from the Oracles (see below,
p. 632) in which various utterances, notably from shrines of
1 Cf. A. D. Nock, Gnomon, xir, 1936, pp. 605 sqq,-, y.R.S.xxvii, 1937,
p. 1 12.
^ Cf. the romance of Heliodorus (see below, p. 615).
® W. Kroll in P.W. s.v, lulianos; F. Cumont, Religions orieniaU^,'^. 294.
* A. D. Nock, Revue des etudes anciennes, xxx, 1928, pp. 280 sqq.
® S. Eitrem, Symbolae Osloenses, vm.
® Cf above, p. 437 and E. Norden, Jgnostos Theos, pp. 78 n. i, 155
n. I (on Tiberianus), 233 sqq. (on Firmicus Maternus before his con-
version).
442 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [ghap.
Hecate, were set forth and interpreted. Later he met a man of
very different temper who was to be his master- — Plotinus, an
Egyptian by birth but in the purest Greek tradition, a mystic with
a hard analytic mind. Plotinus was interested in Oriental things;
he accompanied Gordian’s expedition in the hope of learning
Persian and Indian wisdom at first hand. Nevertheless, his
system is derived from Platonic thoughP and it is on this basis
that he attacked a school of gnostics: he could not allow of ab-
solute and positive evil, in the universe or in the human body,
although the relative valuation which he allowed to both makes the
antithesis between the two views seem to us much less sharp than
it seemed to him; he resented dogma, but he was above all the
disciple of Plato and, after the flesh, of Ammonius Saccas. In par-
ticular, his hostility was aroused by attacks, which to him looked
partly insincere, on Plato and by morbid animosity against the
Greek tradition. Plotinus, like the Hermetists, counted piety
among the greatest of virtues ; but this piety was not, for either,
the piety of the populace. Plotinus drew analogies and metaphors
from worship, and clearly knew the structure of an Egyptian
temple; hut he did not haunt the sanctuary. ‘The gods must
come to me, not I to them.’
Under his influence Porphyry changed: like his master he
remained interested in Oriental religious traditions and his
demonology seems to show an Iranian element®, but he rejected
animal sacrifice, wrote polemics in defence of asceticism, de-
veloped a simple and touching religious ethic which, as we see it
in the Letter to Marcella (his wife), reveals the influence of the
New Testament, and in his Letter to Anebo (an Egyptian priest)
criticized severely ritual of the type which we call magical. Since
both he and the Neoplatonist Hierocles wrote against Christianity,
and Julian and Sallustius used Neoplatonism to interpret paganism
for the educated, and Neoplatonist pagans continued to exist till
the beginning of the sixth century, it has been inferred that
Neoplatonism and Christianity were opposing forces. This seems
ill-founded®. From Plotinus— or from Amelius — the opposition
of Neoplatonism and gnosticism was clear: and many of the
arguments used would be applicable to Catholic Christianity.
Further, in a time of stress the ablest writers of paganism rallied
to its defence, and these writers included outstanding Neoplat-
onists; when the defence had broken, the last pagans numbered
With indebtedness to Moderatus (E. R. Dodds, Class, ^art. xxii,
1928, pp. 129 s^q.) and Ammonius Saccas.
® F. Cumont, Religions orientals pp. 279 sqq. ® See below, p. 632.
XII, vii] NEOPLATONISM 443
in their ranks those who cared for classical culture, and these
naturally included Neoplatonists. That is all; Porphyry’s argu-
ments in his Against the Christians^, so far as it is known to us,
do not turn on Neoplatonist doctrine, and, although any idea of
divine incarnation presented difficulties, Neoplatonism was not
only for Augustine the bridge from Manichaeism to Christianity
but proved to others capable of combination with Christian
doctrines^. In any case, it did not and could not produce a mass
movement.
Porphyry’s defence of his standpoint against simple faith in
cultus died with him, although the tendency to deprecate animal
sacrifice, which we have noted earlier, did not, and Ammianus
Marcellinus regarded the hecatombs of Julian as wasteful and
foolish. Porphyry’s influence was countered by lamblichus, who
wrote an elaborate answer to the Letter to Anebo, under the title
On the mysteries, supplying in it an apologetic and rationale for the
various methods of constraining the gods, of securing communion
with them, of causing epiphanies and the like. His disciples, such
as Maximus of Ephesus, busied themselves with techniques of
this kind which were known as theurgy^; they found an apt
disciple in Julian. We must not think hardly of these men. Some
(as for instance lamblichus himself) combined these interests with
a sustained power of hard thought in other fields; all had an
unquestionable devotion to something which is for us hard to
seize but which was for them very precious; the high moral
fervour of Julian was probably not peculiar to him. Quiet
reasonableness is possible in times when there is quiet, and when
reason seems to justify faith in itself.
VII. ORIENTAL CULTS AND CHRISTIANITY
It has long been asked, and with reason: how did Christianity
as a sacramental religion develop out of legal and non-sacramental
Judaism ? Justin Martyr and others were struck by the existence of
baptismal and communion ceremonies in various pagan cults,
argued that the Devil had in advance counterfeited Christianity.
Many modern students have preferred to suppose that Christianity
borrowed its sacramentalism from the Oriental mystery-religions;
— either directly and deliberately or (as is easier to suppose) as a
result of the unrealized but irresistible influence of an environment
saturated with such ideas.
^ See further below, pp. 630
2 Cf. Augustine, De vera religtme, iv, 7 -
® See below, p. 638; J. Bidez, La vie de Lemper ear Julien, pp. 73 sqq.
444 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
The teachings of Jesus involved no radical break with Palest-
inian Judaism, and the gradual separation of the growing Church
was a matter of excommunication rather than of apostasy. The
Christians outside Jerusalem, to whom Paul wrote, included many
of Jewish antecedents or Judaizing affinities. Their Judaism had
been that of the Dispersion and not that of Jerusalem, and they
spoke Greek and thought Greek. Nevertheless, they were and
had been in a very sharp antithesis to surrounding paganism ; that
was the legacy of Antiochus Epiphanes and of the Maccabees.
Further, the early converts from a purely Gentile background
severed themselves from their religious past when they joined
the tertius -pofulus.
What changed the character of the new movement, and gave to
Christian sacramentalism its special features, was the discovery
that Jesus would not after all return almost at once and bring in
the Sovereignty of God. The Church ceased to be a band of
travellers along a short and narrow isthmus and became a normal
continuing society within the world. Accordingly, the ceremony
of admission and the common meal of fellowship were related to
the society as a society and assumed a position comparable with the
rites of ancient religious groupings and mysteries. This being so,
they came to be described in similar language.
There was a special reason for this. Hellenistic Judaism had
not shrunk from the metaphorical use of mystery-terminology to
describe religious experiences in which the individual, as member
of the Jewish circle within the world and of a narrower concentric
circle within Judaism, felt himself to be the passive recipient of a
transforming grace. In this, as in so much, Hellenistic Judaism
followed the precedent of Greek philosophy. So did Christianity,
but with a significant difference^. This Judaism wove its web of
metaphor and imagery around individual emotions and around
facts in national tradition as viewed in the light of those emotions.
Christianity followed this usage, and Paul’s ‘mysteries’ are, like
Philo’s, secrets of God progressively manifested^. But Christianity
also applied this idiom to its communal ceremonies. The sect of
Therapeutae, as described by Philo, evolved a subtle allegorization
of the crossing of the Red Sea; Paul utilized something of the sort
to explain the implications of baptism (I Cor. x). Philo explained
1 E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light-, with the modifications of A. D.
Nock, Gnomon, xiii, 1937, PP- ^ 5 ^
2 ''mysterion' is here simply ‘secret,’ as in the Septuagint and some popular
Greek, and probably conveyed to Paul no immediate suggestion of pagan
XII, vn] CHRISTIANITY AND HELLENISM 445
the Manna given to the Israelites as the Divine Logos bestowed
on man for his sustenance; Paul and the Fourth Gospel applied
similar exegesis to the Christian sharing of bread and cup.
The Christian sacraments had notable differences from their
pagan analogues. In Greek mysteries ceremonial and moral
purity was demanded as a prerequisite, and righteous conduct
after initiation was expected^, but in the Christian mysteries a
greater emphasis was laid on the moral purpose of the recipient;
it was in fact a sine qua non^, and the Eucharist unworthily
received was unto damnation. Further, in Christianity initiates
were not, as in the Oriental mystery-religions other than Mith-
raism, an inner circle. Nor must we forget that, although the
Church early gained great strength in Rome and Africa, its chief
dissemination before Constantine was in Asia Minor and Syria —
that is to say, in regions characterized by local cults far more than
by the mystery-religions of the ‘second wave.’
On the other hand, the spread of the Oriental cults and the
spread of Christianity in spite of their differences (among which
we must specially stress the contrast between the world-wide
hierarchical organization of Christianity and the local and con-
gregational basis of paganism) were conditioned by common
emotional needs and by a common Weltbild. The desire for
membership of a group affording mutual aid and support, which
gave to ancient cult-associations much of their attractiveness,
the anxiety for insurance against an uncomfortable or shadowy
hereafter, the wish to secure a powerful supernatural protector who
could bend for your benefit the decrees of fate, the craving for
some sort of plus-value, the eager curiosity for revelation — all
these were operative in both advances. So was the desire for some
sort of effective rite, for some denial by act of man’s helplessness.
The men who used the Christian way were not so different from
those who used the pagan, and approximation can be detected in
the third century.
Christianity might have come much nearer to the course of the
Oriental religions in Roman paganism. But for the establishment
and acceptance of the principle of authority and a binding code of
conduct, largely taken from the Old Testament, the way would
have been open for every kind of compromise and for independent
^ Cf. M. P. Nilsson, Arch. f. Religionswiss. xxxn, 1935, pp. 127 sqq.
Under the Empire we seem to see an increase in the ethical emphasis of cults.
® In Jewish expiatory ceremonies ‘without repentance no rites availed’
(G. F. Moore, Judaism, i, p. 505), A notion of intention was not foreign
to Greek sacrifices, but the Jewish emphasis was far sharper. ^ i ; . ; ;
446 PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
divergent development such as we see in the Dionysiac cult-
societies. But for the acceptance of the Old Testament and its
interpretation as the spiritual heritage of Christianity, the new
religion would have found itself curiously impoverished. These
bulwarks were not built in a day or without a struggle. The
various movements which we group under the name of gnosticism
were attempts of freer spirits to build Christianity into schemes
comparable in a measure with those which Plutarch described for
Egyptian religion and Numenius for Platonism blended with
Judaism; they satisfied a similar desire for abstraction and instinct
for innovation. The Naassenes, who flourished near Hierapolis in
Phrygia in the second century of our era, took a hymn to Attis,
probably Hadrianic in date, sung in theatres in which Attis was
identified with Adonis, Osiris, Men, and read into it their
theology — a sort of religion of all educated men. A letter
ascribed (doubtless wrongly) to Hadrian speaks of men at Alex-
andria who worshipped Sarapis and Christ alike^. People of
education, Greeks and liberal Jews, came into Christianity or
grew up within it. Their culture involved the philosophical inter-
pretation of sacred story and also a deep dislike of intellectual
isolation. If, they argued, intelligent men agreed that the various
names and cults of deities must be regarded as appropriate to the
masses and sanctified by antiquity and civic or national tradition,
yet in reality enshrining truth in allegory, did not the Christians
mean the same things, and why should men quarrel over terms ?
The enemy of orthodoxy was not paganism but sophistication.
What is significant is not that this tendency appears, but that it
was arrested. The Jewish strain in Christianity, with its abomina-
tion of Gentile worships and its assumption that they connoted
immorality; the links of community to community, which pre-
vented unfettered development; the hierarchic system; the prin-
ciple of Apostolic authority and Apostolic tradition; the numerical
preponderance of folk with the /oi du charbonnier prevented
what would in effect have been the absorption of Christianity
in Graeco-Roman culture.
Christianity grew steadily. Paganism went its way, but
economic pressure caused a diminution in sacrificial expenditure
and perhaps helped the trend towards ‘the sacrifice of reason®.’
^ S.H.A. ^ad. tyr. {Firmus, etc.) 8; cf. W. Bauer, Rechiglaubigkeit md
Ketzerei im altesten Christmtum, p. 51 sq,
^ An inscription of the Julianic period (see above, p. 424) recording the
revival of the tavrobolium speaks of the man responsible as offering ‘deeds,
mind, good action’ as a sacrifice.
XII, vii] THE LAST PHASE 447
The litany of Licinius’ army before the defeat of Maximin^
shows how near solar henotheism could come to Christian mono-
theism. Revivals and survivals of paganism after Constantine’s
death fall outside the scope of this volume, but certain features of
them are instructive for our present purpose. The aristocratic
group at Rome which clung to paganism as a thing inseparable
from the classical culture to which they were devoted showed
enthusiasm for Mithraism and the tauroboiium, reviving them not
only under Julian but also under Eugenius. These were in a sense
the most emotional, extreme and exciting forms of the old religion :
to Christians they were objectionable in a corresponding degree‘s.
Nevertheless, when we turn to the edicts of Christian emperors
for the suppression of paganism, we find no mention of these
things, but prohibition of divination, sacrifices — specially nocturnal
(and therefore ex hypothesi magical) — magic, and finally all temple
Gultus. Further, while Julian was himself devoted to Mithras, to
solar worship in general, to Cybele, and to theurgy (p. 443), and
not inattentive to the Egyptian deities, his religious policy was
directed to the restoration of Greek traditional practice coupled
with borrowed elements of ethical order, philanthropy, and
organization, as effective weapons of Christianity, His friend
Sallustius, in his treatise Concerning the gods and the universe,
concerns himself with the gods as a whole: he refers to the
(prehistoric) ‘founders of the mysteries,’ but just as a Hellenistic
writer might have done, and, while he speaks of the myth of
Cybele and its expression in rite, he confines himself to the
dramatic ceremonial which Claudius had brought to Rome. Neo-
paganism was to Julian hellenismos. The local gods, as for instance
Mamas of Gaza, lasted longest®.
^ Lactantius, de mart. pers. 46. See below, p. 687 sq.
^ Firmicus Maternus, De errors profanarum religionum, has been regarded
as indicating that its author singled out the ‘Oriental mystery-religions’ as
the chief foes of Christianity. They receive most space in his work, but he is
describing the religions of various races, Egyptians, etc (alluding in chap. 9 to
Adonis as worshipped in the West — in 5 perhaps to Mithras as so worshipped
— but the text is fragmentary); he does not neglect ordinary Graeco-Roman
cult and myth. Ambrosiaster alludes to the cults of Cybele, Isis, Mithras,
when attacking paganism in general: but he, like the writer of [Cypr.j
adv. Senator em, had in view the Roman aristocratic group: in any case
his polemic against astrology is much longer.
® Cf. Mark the Deacon’s Life of Porphyry of Gaza-, see S. A. Cook, The
Religion of Ancient Palestine in the Light of Archaeology, p. 1 86.
448
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE [chap.
VIIL CONCLUSION
We have considered the early wave which carried Egyptian and
Syrian and Anatolian worships to regions outside their homes, and
the later wave which carried similar worships (though in a some-
what different form) and Mithraism through the Latin part of the
world. We have also sought to estimate the diffusion and inten-
siveness of these cults, and our observations have led us to reject
any idea of a substantial concomitant orientalization of life. Two
objections might be raised; first, is this likely in view of the
Oriental influence which has been so often assumed in art, law,
and political forms.? Second, what of the enormous change in
intellectual outlook and spiritual atmosphere between Augustus
and Constantine.? Is not the result something much more
Oriental than Greek or Roman in type and temper .? And could
not a shift in religious ideas be at least a contributory cause for
such a transformation .?
As regards the first point, legal orientalization and political
orientalization within the period down to Constantine are, in fact,
at best highly doubtful^. The precise extent of Oriental influence
in art is disputable (see p. 558 j^,), but that there was material
influence is not open to question. Nevertheless, there is this
crucial difference. In art we are dealing either with imported
works or with works produced by artists who had left the Near
East and settled in the West or with copies of these works. In
cults it is not so. When a foreign group brought a strange cult,
the ministrant or ministrants of that cult belonged to its racial
background ; the cult of Sarapis on Delos remained in one family
for generations. Control would, however, often pass to citizens :
thus after Claudius, the archigallus at Rome was a citizen, Rome
became Cybele’s holy city, so far as the West was concerned, and
the cult was, so to speak, de-Anatolized. Mithraism had no
professional alien priests. Under these conditions, however care-
fully forms were preserved, there was not a personnel with
genuinely alien instincts, and this must have contributed power-
fully to the absorption of the cults. The suggestion which is here
examined involves a modern notion of religion as mainly a matter
of a specific type of ideas, distinct from those of everyday life, and
such that a change of these ideas will alter men’s attitudes.
Alteration is effected by conversion to the prophetic religions; but,
even there, it is not as a rule thorough-going and here, it can
seldom have resulted from adhesion to one of these cults.
1 Cf. N. H. Baynes, J.R.S. xxv, 1935, pp. 83 jyy.
XII, vm] THE LLVIITS OF ORIENTALISM 449
As for the second point, the crucial issue was again not cults or
race but men. The Syrian Orontes did, as Juvenal says, flow into
the Tiber, and even non-Oriental elements, as they entered the
ruling class, did not show as sensitive a repugnance to Oriental
cults as their predecessors had done. But race is not everything;
Lucian of Samosata was probably a pure Semite — ^as much so as
Elagabalus — ^and as a boy he did not talk Greek, and yet he clung
to the old order at a time when many pure Hellenes had followed
after other things. Intellectual and literary activity are largely
determined by conventions and by a man’s choice; Frederick the
Great was as Prussian as his father, but he preferred to try to
think and write in French.
The change in spiritual atmosphere between Augustus and
Constantine is part of a long gradual transformation. Our fathers
could quote Swinburne’s
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy
breath
and could think in terms of an antithesis between a free untram-
melled Greek mind and a dogmatic medievalism, or between
clean-limbed models for Pheidias and unwashed hermits. That is
all past; we know now that paganism had of itself gone far in the
direction of grayness and dogmatism and asceticism. Athens had
known great days, when a brilliant minority had enjoyed the
stimulus of an intelligent and well-integrated society, and when
for minority and majority alike men’s feet seemed surely set on
paths which led to unlimited horizons. Humanity looked at the
world, and found it good ; and the Orphic insistence on a sense of
sin, a hatred of the body, and a yearning for salvation was left to
a hypochondriac few. Nevertheless, even before the end of the
Periclean age, new forms of individualism and new external condi-
tions threatened the old harmony. Great achievements and
glittering prizes were still in store, but no new satisfying adjust-
ment. The cosmopolitan minority of intellectuals were driven in
on themselves. Philosophy could no more build a city; she did but
strive to give man shelter under a wall, ‘as in a storm.’ The
brilliant success of the Roman Principate in its first two centuries
gave a new hope but did not kill a sense of futility and disintegra-
tion. After Marcus Aurelius the days were darkened; coarser
natures and cruder ways had to serve the needs of harder times.
Meanwhile a new order was coming to birth.
CHAPTER XIII
PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
I. THE FORMATION OF THE CANON
AFTER the execution of Ignatius of Antioch, in the days of
jt\. Trajan^, the Christian Church enjoyed a long period of peace
from persecution by the State. But the ‘struggle for existence’
never ends, and the period from about 120 to 190 shews us the
new Society adapting itself to its environment in the Roman
Empire. In the great work of Irenaeus Against Heresies (a.d. 186)
we find a literary expression of the Catholic system, so complete
and successful that the whole history of the Church from Irenaeus
to the Reformation, and even later, may be viewed as a natural
development of it^. Before Irenaeus, on the other hand, new
factors were continually presenting themselves. Some of these the
Church accepted; others it rejected, but in rejecting them the
opinion of the dominant party was profoundly modified. At the
end of the period the Church’s face is definitely turned back to the
infallible Past, to the tradition and memory of the days of the first
apostles.
The Christian Church, at the beginning of the period con-
sidered in this chapter, was a somewhat loosely organized collec-
tion of local societies. They were held together mainly by a com-
mon Hope and a Holy Book, The Hope was that their Lord Jesus,
who had been crucified in Judaea and yet had risen again, was
coming very soon from heaven to judge the living and the dead
and to renew the earth, and they believed that their Holy Book
(which was also the Holy Book of the Jews) had foretold this of
their Lord, as well as many details of His career when He lived on
earth. Both these main Articles of Faith were encompassed with
difficulties, both in themselves and as credenda for new converts.
• The consideration of the Bible and its place in the Christian
scheme is mainly an affair of ecclesiastical history and develop-
ment, leading to the formation of the Christian Canon of the Old
and the New Testaments, but it is necessary to have some idea of
the trains of thought which led up to this conclusion and to con-
^ See vol. XI, p. 292. . ® See vol. xi, p. 253.
XIII, i] THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 451
sider briefly some of the main personalities connected with it. We
must, in the first place, dismiss altogether from our minds the
modern evolutionary view which believes that truth and excellence
of every kind have developed by a sort of organic process from
small and perhaps unlovely beginnings, with fresh elements of
real value coming in from time to time by what is not so much
evolution 2l 5 ‘ epigenesis'^,' Neither the Christians nor the pagans
so regarded the Old Testament. It was true or false, enlightening
or the reverse. There was, it is true, much in the Bible which was
shocking to the would-be convert. It was not so much the
miraculous element and the geocentric outlook that were a dif-
ficulty to the heathen, for these things they shared with the
Christian, but they were deterred by the barbarous style of the
Greek and by the presence of trifling regulations and taboos which
seemed to be beneath the dignity of the Highest God. On the
other hand, the Christians were able to argue that the whole Bible,
i.e. the ‘Old Testament,’ was written long before Plato; and the
‘argument from prophecy,’ i.e. the assertion that this or that event
in the career of Jesus Christ had been indicated by Hebrew
Prophets long ago, seems to have had real weight.
The difficulty felt by the Christians was rather this : if the Bible
was the very word of God, by what right did Christians disobey so
many of the plain commands found in it ? Christians ate pork and
hare, and disregarded all the ritual laws of the Pentateuch: was
the Pentateuch after all God’s book ^ One answer to this question
was given in the Epistle of Barnabas.) a very early document, per-
haps Alexandrian, which maintained that all the so-called food-
laws were misinterpreted by the Jews and that they were really
moral commands to avoid the society of various types of sinners.
The Bible, on this view, was wholly moral, but obscurely ex-
pressed. Another view, given by one Ptolemaeus, a disciple of
Valentinus the gnostic^, was that we have to distinguish different
elements in the Jewish code. There are elements which come
merely from the ‘tradition of the elders,’ others that were added by
Moses because of the hardness of the Israelites’ hearts, others that
are really divine. Of this last class, some were figurative, like the
command to eat unleavened bread at Passover, now fulfilled in
Christ; other things are permanent, like the Decalogue. A very
similar theory to this is to be found in the Didascalia, a manual for
Christians written somewhere in the East during the first half of
1 See the note by G. Tyrrell in Christianity at the Cross-Roads, p. 18, on
the significance of the concept of epigenesis for theology.
^ In Epiphanius, Haer. xxxiii, 3 sqq. (known as the Epistle to Flora').
452 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
the third century. In this work we are taught that the good Law
is the Ten Words and the Judgments, given before the Israelites
made the golden calf and served idols. But the rest was given
because the Lord was angry with them, and so He laid on the
Israelites new and burdensome laws, from which Jesus has delivered
Christians.
A more radical solution was championed by Marcion of Pontus.
According to the Chronicle of Edessa he left the Catholic Church
in A.D. 1 38, so that we may place his career between 100 and 170,
during the first half of which he was not a declared heretic. He
started from the kindness of the Father whom Jesus had an-
nounced, and whose gracious willingness to forgive freely was
different in character from the severe justice of the God of the
Bible. Marcion concluded that they could not be the same, and
that the Gospel of Jesus was something wholly new. According
to Marcion, the world set forth in the Bible, i.e. the Old Testa-
ment, is the product of Law acting upon Matter. Law cannot and
will not forgive: the God of Law and Justice exacts ‘an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ in other words ‘action and reaction
are equal and opposite.’ Man was formed in the image of the
God of the Bible, and when he, man, breaks the just laws of that
God, God punishes him as he deserves. So the human race went
on for many generations, till seeing their misery the Kind Father
sent His Son to live among men and heal their sins and diseases,
Jesus and His Father are nowhere clearly defined or differentiated.
They represent Grace, a third Principle, distinct from Matter
and its Laws.
To Marcion, Jesus was not born: He appeared in Judaea in the
fifteenth year of Tiberius, as the Gospel says^, and went about
doing good among men. After a while the God of Law instigated
Jesus’s enemies to kill Him. But death had no power over Jesus.
He appeared alive at the right hand of the God of Law and pointed
out that He, Jesus, had only done good to men: the God of Law
was guilty of His death. For this the God of Law, according to the
Law itself, deserved to die, but Jesus agreed to take in exchange
the souls of all those who accepted the Christian Gospel. So He
descended again and revealed to Paul, the only true disciple, that
we have been ‘ bought with a price^.’
It is easy to pick holes in this fantastic scheme, as indeed
Tertullian and Epiphanius and other Church writers did. But it
is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of Marcion for
the development of the Church. In the first place, the rival Church
^ Lk. iii, I.
® I Cor. vi, 20.
XIII, I] MARCION 453
that he founded lasted for centuries. Its organization was very
much that of the Great Church, so like, in fact, that it is thought
probable that he was a pioneer and that many features of the
Catholic hierarchy were adapted from the Marcionite system.
It is certain, at least, that the Marcionites produced their share of
martyrs, for instance the presbyter Metrodorus, who met his death
in the Decian persecution.
The sacramental theory of the Marcionites, which refused
baptism and the Eucharist to married persons, we meet with again
in the Syriac-speaking Church of Mesopotamia^. But some
words must here be given to the Marcionite Bible, which is very
closely connected with the origin of the Canon of the New
Testament. Marcion rejected the God of the Jews as his God, and
so rejected the Old Testament which told him of that God. He
made great use of it, it is true, in his story of the formation of
Adam, but it had for him no authority. He was left without a
Bible. In its place he put an account of the words and deeds of
Jesus, and a collection of the writings of His true apostle Paul.
The elaborate investigations, made during the nineteenth
century, of the relation of the Marcionite ‘Gospel’ to the tale told
by Luke in his First Volume (i.e. the gospel) have substantially con-
firmed the allegations of Tertullian and Epiphanius, that Marcion
took ‘Luke’ and arbitrarily altered it, mostly by cutting out inci-
dents which he regarded as Jewish perversion of the true Gospel^.
Where the Church Fathers are wrong is in their natural assump-
tion that Marcion chose out one of the four Canonical Gospels
and mutilated it. In Marcion ’s day these works existed, but they
were not yet ‘canonical.’ It is likely that Marcion regarded his
procedure as that of extracting from a bulky historical work® those
records of the Lord Jesus which seemed to him to be genuine.
Marcion’s ‘ Apostolicon’ consisted of ten letters of Paul, Le. the
collection familiar to us, minus the Pastoral letters (and of course
Hebrews), but including Philemon. The earlier history of the
Pauline Epistles is obscure and the occasion of their first collection
as a Corpus is uncertain. Some of the Pauline Epistles were in
general circulation before the end of the first century. Clement of
Rome clearly knew and used Romans and at the appropriate
moment* he bids the Corinthians ‘take up the Epistle of the
^ See below pp. 493 ryy.
2 See particularly the telling appeal to the Concordance in Sanday’s
Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 222-230, an argument that has never been
answered.
® Lucas, ad Theophilum, vols. 1 and n. Ep.i ad Cor. xtvii, i
454 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap
blessed Paul the Apostle’ in which the Apostle had charged them
concerning the evils of partisanship (i Cor. i. 1 1 sqq^. Ignatius,
likewise, certainly knew i Corinthians ; he probably knew Ephes-
ians also, and he may have known other Pauline letters. Decisive
evidence is lacking, but it is not unlikely that a collection of
Pauline Epistles, of the same compass as Marcion’s, was already
in existence when Ignatius wrote. There is, at any rate, good reason
to think that the compiler of the Pastoral Epistles was familiar
with the rest of the Pauline Corpus in its entirety^. But for
Marcion — now left without the Bible of the Church, that is the
Old Testament— the writings of Paul the one true Apostle at-
tained a new position of paramount authority. True they, like
St Luke’s Gospel, could not be accepted as they stood, but re-
quired to be purged of many a judaizing corruption. Thus purged,
they were made to form a second constituent part of Marcion’s
new Canon of Scripture. Marcion was the first formally to
‘canonize’ the Pauline Epistles.
The Catholic Church could not fall behind the heretic in the
authority which it bestowed upon the writings of the Apostle.
For it too the Pauline Epistles became Scripture. Indeed, there
is evidence that Marcion’s edition of the Pauline letters directly
influenced the New Testament of the Catholic Church^.
A Life and Sayings of Jesus and a Collection of Pauline Letters
— ^here we have the germ of a New Bible. The Church followed
Marcion’s lead. But whereas Marcion made his ‘Gospel’ and his
‘Apostle’ a substitute for the old Bible, the Church got its larger
collection of apostolic writings as a New Testament alongside the
Old Testament.
II. MONTANISM AND THE NEW PROPHECY
In the first Christian communities as we know them from the
books of the New Testament we find prophets taking a leading
part in the common life and holding a place second only to that
1 P. N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, pp. 88-92;
167-175. An important witness for a full Pauline Corpus is Polycarp, who
quotes from i and 2 Tim. as well as from i Cor., Gal., Rom., 2 Thess.,
Ephes., Philipp. But the date of this part of Polycarp’s letter is under dispute.
Dr Harrison assigns it to c. a.d. i 36—1 37. (Polycarp’s Two Epistles to the
Philippians, p. 315. See below, p. 474.)
2 This evidence mainly comes from the Latin Jrgumenta detected as
Marcionite in 1 907 by Dom de Bruyne. For the influence of Marcion upon
the New Testament of the Catholic Church cf. A. von Harnack, Die
Briefsammlung des Apostels Patdtts, pp. 17—23.
XIII, n] PROPHECY 455
of the Apostles. A prophet speaking under the direction of the
Spirit has a recognized claim on the acceptance of the Church.
The first Epistle to the Corinthians shews the Apostle Paul seek-
ing to guide and control the enthusiastic utterance of the prophets.
The prophetic ministry appears to have maintained its place in the
succeeding generation: the Apocalypse is a literary movement of
Christian prophecy in the closing years of the first century, and
Ignatius of Antioch, himself a bishop, speaks under the influence
of inspiration.
The writings of Irenaeus illustrate the changes which had
passed over prophecy in the Church by the later decades of the
second century. Irenaeus has very little to say about Christian
prophets; his main task had been to stem the rising flood of
gnostic heresy and for this purpose he relied upon the appeal to
apostolic tradition. At the same time he has no doubt that the
prophetic gift continues in the Church; he appeals to the now
canonized texts of Paul which speak of men and women prophe-
sying in the congregation, and finds it necessary to warn his
readers of the danger of expelling prophecy from the Church^.
Some time before Irenaeus wrote prophecy had ceased to occupy
the place it once had held. Already in the Didache it is plain that
while in principle the highest veneration and respect is still ac-
corded to the prophet, the danger of imposture is acutely felt, and
the local ministry is tending to take over rights and duties for-
merly associated with the prophet. The first enthusiasm has
passed. In Hermas, the Roman seer, we can detect the gradual
dying down of inspiration. It is difficult not to feel that his work
known as The Shepherd covers more than half a life-time. In the
first ‘Visions’ we have the experiences of an ecstatic, not always
quite coherent; in the long ‘Similitudes’ at the end we have moral
and dogmatic teaching set forth in wearisome and laboured
parables, without literary charm and only redeemed by their
obvious sincerity and their manful grappling with difficult
problems®.
It is likely that the decline in prophecy was not everywhere
equally pronounced. There have come down to us from the earlier
decades of the second century the names of an Asiatic prophet
Quadratus, and a prophetess Ammia of Philadelphia®, and this
may indicate that the ministry of prophecy had maintained itself
1 adv. Haer. m, il, I2.
^ See the appreciation in A. Schweitzer, Mysticism of Paul the apostle,
p. 289.
® Scriptor anon. ap. Eusebius, Hist. EccL V, 17, 3 "“ 4 - Cf. ib. iii, 37, i.
AND THE CHURCH [chap.
more effectively among the chvirches to which the prophet John
had once addressed the letters of the Apocalypse. It was at any
rate in Phrygia that a new prophetic movement flared up in the
latter half of the second century which set problems to the
Church leaders in the chief centres of the Christian faith through-
out the world. There can be little doubt that Montanus and his
prophecy was in the mind of Irenaeuswhen he so plainly vindicated
the legitimacy of prophecy within the Church. Not that Irenaeus
was ever himself an adherent of the new movement, but he had
taken part in an attempt at reconciliation in connection with
Montanism^, and his words shew that he was deeply concerned
at the reaction which Montanism had provoked^.
The ‘New Prophecy,’ as Montanism was often called, was
generated in the vivid expectation of the coming of the Kingdom
of Christ on earth, which filled the thoughts of many Christians
of this period®. When Gratus was proconsul of Asia^, Montanus,
formerly perhaps a priest of Cybele, fell into a trance at the village
of Ardabau in Mysia near Phrygia soon after his conversion, and
prophesied in the power of the Spirit. Two women, Priscilla and
Maximilla, were later likewise struck with the prophetic afflatus.
These left their husbands and joined themselves to the mission of
Montanus.
Our knowledge of the original Montanism is derived almost
entirely from the hostile reports of contemporary Asiatic Church
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 3, 4.
^ The text of the passage in Irenaeus referred to above (p. 455, n. i) is
very obscure as it stands. If, with Ritschl, Bonwetsch, de Labriolle, and
others, we accept the Qms.rxiz.tion ‘ pseudoprophetas quidem esse volunt' for
^ pseudoprophetae (juidem esse w/awt’ everything falls into place.
® Cf. the stories of the Syrian bishop who led out men, women and
children of his flock to meet Christ in the desert, and of the bishop in
Pontus who disorganized the life of many of his people by his confident
prophecy that the Judgment would come upon the earth within a year, re-
lated by Hippolytus, In Daniel, iv, 18, 19.
* Scriptor anon. ap. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 16, 7. Unfortunately the
proconsulship of Gratus cannot be fixed, and the date of the rise of Mont-
anism is uncertain. Epiphanius would fix it in a.d. 156—7 (Haer. xlviii, i)
and this date is adopted by Bonwetsch, Harnack and others; Eusebius in 1 72
in the Armenian version of the Chronicon under Olympiad 238, i. (Cf.
de Labriolle, La crise Montaniste, p. 570 and cf. Hist. Eccl. iv, 27.) The
text of Epiphanius, Haer. li, 33 as commented on by Holl, Berlin Corpus n,
p. 307 would support the dating of Eusebius. Cf. the full discussion in de
Labriolle, op. cit. pp. 569-89. It may be that the two datings refer to different
events in Montanist history; so H. J. Lawlor and J. E. L. Oulton, The
Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, n, p. 1 80 sq.
XIII, Ii] MONT ANUS 457
writers from whose works Eusebius has happily preserved ex-
tensive extracts. Tertullian — the one convert to Montanism of
first-rate importance— provides us with evidence of Montanist
belief and practice in Africa at the beginning of the third century
(p. 537 jy.). But except for scanty fragments preserved mainly in
Tertullian and in Epiphanius, the collections of Oracles, which for
Montanist believers had the authority of direct revelations, have
perished. Slender as the sources of our knowledge are, they yet
enable us to recover the main characteristics of the teaching and
mission of Montanus and his associates.
The fundamental convictions of the New Prophecy in its
earliest form were, first that the Heavenly Jerusalem was shortly
to descend upon the earth — its arrival was expected at the little
Phrygian township of Pepuza — ^and that Montanus himself was
indwelt by that Paraclete of whom Jesus had promised that He
should come after Him to carry on His work. Concerning the
Paraclete Jesus in St John’s Gospel had said: ‘I have yet many
'■.hings to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now; but when he,
foe Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth’
(xvi, 12—13). These words afforded a scriptural basis for the
Montanist claim, which so shocked the common sentiment of the
Church, that the apostolic teaching — nay the teaching of Christ
Himself — ^was incomplete and that a fuller revelation had now
been vouchsafed which the Church was called upon to accept^.
Yet bolder language is attributed to Montanus: Epiphanius
quotes him as saying: T am neither an angel, nor a messenger,
but I am come the Lord God, the Father^.’ There is probably
some misunderstanding here. Montanus no doubt thought him-
self to be the medium through which God spoke, but it is unlikely
that he thought himself to be personally God. His own view of
the divine activity is expressed in another oracle: ‘Behold man
is as a lyre and I hover over him as a plectrum. Man sleeps, and
I wake; behold it is the Lord who removes the hearts of man and
gives them [other] hearts®.’ The leaders of the movement thought
of their mission as the final phase of revelation. ‘After me,’ said
Maximilla, ‘there shall be no prophetess more; then will be the
end^’
The tense expectation of the coming Judgment was associated
in Montanism with an ascetic rigorism which accentuated ten-
dencies already powerful in the Church. The martyr’s death,
though it was not to be directly courted, was not to be eluded by
^ Tertullian, de virg. vel. i. Epiphanius, Haer. xlviii, ii.
3 ib. XLVIII, 4. ih. XL VII, 2. ‘ , i
458 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
flight. With respect to fasting Montanus strengthened the pre-
vailing requirement, making the Wednesday and the Friday fasts
obligatory and extending their duration. Again, the Montanist
Ghurehes prohibited second marriages, agreeing in this with an
earlier Christian tradition which regarded second marriage as
‘fair-seeming adultery^.’ Of Montanus it is said by an early
antagonist that he ‘taught the dissolution of marriage^,’ and it
seems likely that the movement in its early stages discouraged, if
it did not actually forbid, married life. Maximilla and Priscilla
had left their husbands. The strength of similar tendencies within
the Church is well illustrated by the Apocryphal Acts of John, of
Peter and of Paul, which emanated from Asia Minor in the second
half of the second century.
In general the temper of the movement was conservative and
orthodox. Enemies admitted that they held the articles of the
common faith of the Church. If there was a tendency to Mon-
archianism (p. 533) among a section of the Montanists, this was
no Montanist peculiarity. They venerated the same scriptures as
the Church, and they had no quarrel with the Church’s hierarchy
as such. When they were forced into the position of a separate
sect they appear to have carried on the threefold ministry of the
Church while imposing upon it the superior orders of Patriarchs
(resident at Pepuza) and Associates {KoivcavoCf. Yet to the great
Church now organizing itself into a hierarchy of authority, the
fundamental claim of Montanism inevitably wore the aspect of a
challenge. If the Paraclete directly declared the will of Christ
through Montanus, authority was powerless. Here is the his-
torical significance of Montanism: it was this claim which more
than anything else roused the episcopacy of Asia to a fierce con-
demnation of the New Prophecy. Montanism could not meet that
attack: its power was broken in Central Phrygia but it may well
be that withdrawing from the cities it strengthened itself among
the peasantry. In the villages of the Tembris valley there are
funeral monuments dating from the third century, which differ
from other Christian monuments in Phrygia, whereas in other
monuments Christians were content to veil their Christianity in
1 Athenagoras, Suppl. 33.
® Apollonius ap. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 1 8, 2.
® These higher orders carried on, it m&j be presumed, the succession of
the first originators of the movement. For the Montanist hierarchy see
Jerome, Ep. 41, 3, and Cod. Just, i, 5 j 20. The texts are discussed in
de Labriolle, La crise Montanistet pp. 495—507. The title Kotvcovo^ has been
found in an inscription dated a.d. 514—15 from the neighbourhood of
Philadelphia {Byzantion, ii, 1925, p. 330).
XIII, Ii] THE CHALLENGE OF MONTANISM 459
neutral formulae, the makers of these monuments boldly pro-
fessed their faith as ‘Christians addressing Christians.’ It has
been conjectured that they were Montanists^.
Montanism forced the Church to wrestle with the problem of
the legitimacy of ecstasy in prophecy and the place of prophecy
amongst orthodox Christians® ; it contributed towards the estab-
lishment of a closed canon of scripture to which no new revela-
tions could be added. This is an idea which in the last quarter of
the second century found expression in the works of Irenaeus and
the so-called ‘ Muratorian Canon,’ which enumerates the books of
the New Testament and ends by condemning the ‘ Cataphrygians.’
Again, the wide sphere which Montanism had opened to woman
within the Church® led the Catholics anxiously to maintain the
restrictions which St Paul had set upon the public ministry of
women. Thus the challenge of the New Prophecy did but serve
to strengthen the hierarchical government of the Catholic Church.
It is in connection with the opposition to Montanism that we first
hear of the summoning of Church councils. The believers in Asia,
we are told, held frequent meetings with regard to the New
Prophecy, and after testing the utterances of the prophets agreed
to excommunicate its adherents^. This was a momentous innova-
tion: through these assemblages guided by the Holy Spirit the
Church gained a new realization alike of its unity and its strength.
The strenuous opposition of the leaders of the Church pre-
1 The view that these inscriptions were Montanist is not undisputed. See
Revue de FUniv. de Bruxelles, xxxvi, Oct. 1930, p. 233, where Gr^oire
gives reasons for withdrawing his acceptance of that view. But the use of
the word ^pei<niav&v in an inscription which on other grounds has been
judged to be Montanist gives support to Calder’s view that they are
Montanist (Byzaniion, vi, 1931, p. 423 sq.).
^ On this cf. de Labriolle, op. cit. pp. 555 sqq. At a later date the same
problem was raised for the Church by Priscillianism.
® The prophesying of Priscilla and Maximilla set a precedent which un-
questionably influenced the later practice of the Montanist Churches.
According to Epiphanius (Haer. xlix, i i), the Montanists adrrutted women
to be bishops and presbyters, but his statement is open to question. Cf. de
Labriolle, op. cit. pp. 507-12. It is not certain that the prophetess who
celebrated the Eucharist referred to by Firmilian (Cyprian, Ep. lxxv, 7)
was Montanist. It is in itself probable that women were eligible for the
higher orders of patriarch and KOiv<ev 6 <!. A Montanist inscription dis-
covered in the neighbourhood of Pepuza, and assigned to the late third
century, gives the names of a man and a woman side by side on an official
marble cathedra. There can be little doubt that they both held high place in
the Montanist hierarchy. See vi, 1931, p. 423
* Scriptor anon. ap. Eusebius, Hist. EccL v, 16, lo. . ; ; :
46 o pagan philosophy AND THE CHURCH [chap.
vented the New Prophecy from winning the acceptance which it
sought of the Church at large. Against its own will and intention,
Montanism became a sect. As a sect it had a long history^. In the
West it appears to have declined rapidly in influence. After Tertul-
lian not a word is heard of Montanism at Carthage. It may be that
here, as perhaps elsewhere, Montanists fused with the like-minded
Novatianists (p. 540 jy.). But later, in the fourth century, there
were Montanists at Barcelona as well as at Rome. The corporate
existence of the sect at Rome was probably ended by a decree of
Honorius in a.d. 407. In the East Montanism fought harder and
lived longer. Clement of Alexandria found it necessary to refute
the heresy, and Origen also takes occasion to discuss and repudiate
its claims. In the fourth century it counted many adherents in
Asia Minor and had found a foothold in Constantinople. Like
other heretical bodies it fell under the ban of the Christian em-
perors, and though a last echo is heard as late as the ninth century,
it was probably virtually extinguished by the persecuting legisla-
tion of Justinian, under whom the Montanists in Phrygia shut
their Churches with themselves inside and set fire to them over
their heads®.
III. THE APOLOGISTS
Early Christian apologetic was the outcome of persecution: it
was because ‘certain wicked men were endeavouring to molest
our people’ that Quadratus presented to Hadrian the first
Christian apology. It is to protest against the injustice of the
Roman State in regarding the confession of the Christian faith
— ^the nomen Christianum — ^as a punishable offence, to meet the
popular charges of ‘atheism,’ cannibalism, and Thyestean orgies
that in succession the Apologists composed their defences of the
Christian revelation. In these writings the hated sect appeals
against the judgment of the Roman world.
The Christian Apologists of the second century thus possess a
significance out of all proportion to their intellectual ability or to
the intrinsic literary merits of their works. With them the Christ-
ian Church enters for the first time into the common world of
literature and culture. The writings of the first age of Christianity
were directed to the guidance and edification of the faithful: a
contagious missionary movement had spread itself in the main
centres of commercial and political life and won adherents chiefliy,
though not exclusively, among the lower social strata of society.
For the later historyof Montanism, see de Labriolle, op. cit. pp. 469-536.
^ Procopius, Hist. Arc. xi, 23.
XIII, III] THE APPEAL OF THE APOLOGISTS 461
Bound together by an intense and enthusiastic conviction, these
newly converted believers had not yet found it necessary to state
a case for their faith in order to conciliate the instructed opinion
of the unconverted world. It is indeed possible that some such aim
was not entirely unfamiliar to the author of the Third Gospel and
the Book of Acts. But even the Lucan writings, like all the rest of
the New Testament literature, and the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers, are primarily intended for, and would only be intelligible
to, a believing public. The Apologists, on the other hand, de-
liberately aimed at influencing the opinion of the world. A new
culture is beginning to take shape. The Christian Church has
become conscious of itself as a ‘third race,’ alongside pagans and
Jews; and it seeks to win public recognition and legal toleration
from the powers that be.
The Apologists presented their faith in the guise of a new and
superior ‘philosophy’ which claimed to supersede the rival and
contradictory philosophies of the pagan world. They address
themselves to the world at large, or— more frequently^ — ^to the
reigning emperor. Whether or not such writings ever reached
the hands of the emperor himself may be doubted. But even if
this style of address is to be regarded as mere literary form, it is
none the less significant of the apologetic aim. The Christian
Church is coming to think of itself as the bearer of a world re-
ligion, related to the world-wide empire of Rome. Thus, one of
the later Apologists, Melito of Sardes, addressing Marcus
Aurelius, speaks in these terms of the Christian faith: ‘A philo-
sophy which formerly flourished among the barbarians, but which
during the great reign of your ancestor Augustus sprang up among
the nations which you rule, so that it became a blessing of good
omen to your Empire.’ ‘To this power,’ he continues, ‘you have
succeeded as men have desired; and in this power you will con-
tinue with your son, on condition that you guard that philosophy
which has grown with the Empire, and which came into existence
under Augustus.’ He affirms that Nero and Domitian alone of
the successors of Augustus had been misled into a policy of hos-
tility to the Church^. Melito expresses a conviction of which the
writings of the Greek Apologists were at once a symptom and a
cause.
There is little that is original in these apologies. Christianity
was following in the wake of Judaism, and though actual de-
pendence upon particular Jewish writings can seldom be estab-
lished, certain main themes have been taken over from the
^ Jp. Eusebius, Hitt. EctL IV, 26, 7 sqq.
462 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURGH [chap.
propagandist literature of Hellenistic Judaism. Christian and
Jewish Apologists alike maintained the superior antiquity and
originality of the Jewish scriptures as against the writings of the
Greeks, and argued that the classical writers of Greece had
borrowed from Moses. Christian Apologists, no less than Jewish,
were concerned to pour scorn upon the idolatrous practices and
the immoral mythologies of paganism. Again, Hellenistic Jews
had anticipated Christians in drawing upon the language and
ideas of current popular philosophy, to explain and commend
their religious beliefs. But while the Christian Apologists laid
under contribution the literature both of Jews and Greeks, they
were not the less loyal to the main convictions of the primitive
Christian faith. While the use of popular philosophical ideas en-
abled them to establish contact with the world at large, these ideas
are never substituted for the tradition of the Church. The two
streams run side by side. The ethical standard of the Christian
Church is steadfastly upheld; there is no wavering in their con-
viction that the Old Testament Scriptures are directly inspired by
the Divine Spirit, and that the prophecies contained therein have
been fulfilled in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ;
lastly, the general belief of the Church of the second century, that
this same Jesus is to come again to judge the world, and to
inaugurate a millennial kingdom upon earth, maintains its
ground.
Indeed it is not in the inherited material, but in the faith which
has turned this material to its own uses that the interest lies. Here
is the triumphant proclamation of a new freedom — a liberation
from the oppression which weighed so heavily upon the pagan
world of that day. Man was no longer the victim of the malice of
the countless demon powers which beset his life: the victory over
the demons had been won once and for all time, and that victory
could be appropriated by the humblest Christian through faith.
The numberless gods of the pagan pantheon were but a demonic
delusion: there was but one God, and the Divine Word issuing
from that God offered to all men release from subjection to
arbitrary and immoral deities. The message of Good Tidings
came to the convert as a mighty liberation, precisely as it did in
the beginning of the Chxirch’s history (vol. xi, p. 275 jy.). The
stars in their courses (so pagans declared) determined the life of
man and there was no escape from inexorable Fate: here again
the Apologists can claim to bring to. the pagan world release, for
they can assure man that despite the stars he is the master of his
own soul and that his will is free: with himself rests his
XIII, Iiij A DOCTRINE OF RELEASE 463
destiny— whether he claim an immortality of bliss or choose a
punishment which shall have no end. One can still catch the thrill
of this declaration of independence, by which, through faith, the
convert could pass from the prison of a determinist universe.
Through these early apologies there runs a democratic exulta-
tion: this gospel of liberation is not confined to the cultured few,
it is no aristocratic gnosis. It appeals to women as well as men, to
young and old alike, to rich and poor, to the slave as well as to the
free man. It is indeed a catholic proclamation. As ‘sisters’ and
‘ brothers’ all can find a place in the family of the Christian faith.
It is easy to ascribe too great an importance to the terminology
through which the message is expressed: naturally the Apologist
employs the common language of the culture of his day. Some
converts were formerly pagan philosophers, and philosophers they
remained after their conversion. Christian theology was still in
the making and the theological thought of the Apologists is
tentative, exploratory. For the pagan of the second century his
philosophy was essentially religious, and the motive force which
drives the Christian convert to present his faith in philosophic
guise is throughout a religious conviction. The modern reader
misses a reference to the Gospels, but the ‘memoirs’ of the
Apostles were but lately written : they lacked the authority which
was generally attributed to antiquity. It was a far more cogent
argument to appeal to those more ancient scriptures — the writings
of the prophets confirmed as they were by the recent fulfilment of
their prophecies. The faith which was born under Tiberius — a
faith but of yesterday — ^had its roots in an immemorial past; be-
fore there was a Greece there was Christianity.
The earliest Christian apology — ^that of C^adratus — ^we no
longer possess. Eusebius, indeed, declares that it was addressed to
Hadrian, but its date and place of composition remain uncertain^.
The earliest surviving apology is the recently recovered work of
Aristides, a ‘philosopher’ of Athens, which Eusebius states was,
like that of Quadratus, addressed to Hadrian®: many scholars have
thought that in view of the Syriac translation’s heading ‘To
Adrianus Antoninus’ that it was to Antoninus Pius that the
apology was presented. Aristides writes in an artless style, and
his thought is as simple as his language. Beginning with a rational
argument for the existence of God, he proceeds to review the three
^ Hist. Eccl, IV, 3, I. It was perhaps composed in Asia Minor: the
Chronicle of Eusebius dates the apology to a.d. 124—126. Cf. O. Barden-
hewer, Gesch. d: altkirch. Literature s., p, 184 ry.
® Hist. Eccl. IV, 3, 3.
464 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
great types of religion, Paganism, Judaism and Christianity^. The
greater part of the book is taken up with a polemic against the
false pagan cults of Chaldaeans, Greeks and Egyptians. In con-
trast to the polytheistic heathen the Jews recognize the One True
God; yet they, too, have gone astray in the practice of their faith,
which is rather a worship of angels than a worship of God.
Aristides then turns to the Christian religion. He attempts no
reasoned defence of the new faith, but is content to describe who
the Christians are; whence they are derived; who Jesus Christ
was, and what are the commands which He has ‘graven in the
hearts of Christians.’ Finally, he proclaims the judgment which
God is to bring upon the world.
The extensive genuine works of Justin give the best picture of
the attitude of second-century Christians to their chief opponents.
In his apology he begins by asserting that Christians are not
‘atheists,’ as was generally supposed; their morals are excellent,
following the ethical teaching of Christ, which is illustrated by
extracts from the Gospels (mostly from Matthew and Luke);
Christ was spoken of by prophets who had lived centuries before
Him. Those who are persuaded that the truth is \yith the Chris-
tians are admitted to their Society by a bath, called also ‘illumina-
tion’ and ‘rebirth,’ and are then allowed to partake of the Chris-
tian ritual meal called ‘Eucharist,’ which is described in general
terms. It takes place on Sundays after they have read in their
sacred books and heard a discourse from their president. Justin
has already mentioned that they prayed for the Imperial power.
In the other chief work of Justin, the Dialogue with the Jew
Trypho, we have Justin’s attitude towards the Old Testament.
At the opening of the first apology^ Justin had expressed the
main lines of his theology: Christians are not ‘atheists,’ they wor-
ship the Creator of all things, put their Master Jesus Christ in the
second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third. In the Dia-
logue this theory is expanded. Christ is the Word (Logos) of God,
who sometimes appeared in various forms to Biblical heroes of old
time, in the shape of a man to Abraham, as fire in the bush to
Moses, and finally was born as a human being of the Virgin Mary,
1 The view of J. Geffcken (Zwei griech. Apolog, p. 46), adopting the
threefold classification of the Greek text as against the fourfold classification
of the Syrian Version (Barbarians, Greeks, Jews and Christians) preferred by
Seeberg and others, as the original, is here followed. This threefold classifica-
tion answers to the prevailing conception of the Christians as ‘The Third
Race’ already found in the early second-century Praedic. Petri ap. Clement
Alex. Strom, vi, 5. ^ § 13.
XIII, III] JUSTIN 465
and was crucified and rose again. Before this the Divine Spirit,
speaking by the Hebrew prophets, had predicted many of the
events which were to happen in His earthly life. This ‘Word’ of
God is distinct from the ultimate, invisible Creator,
Justin is here making use of a term current in popular con-
temporary philosophy, where it provided a mediating principle
between the Supreme God, and the phenomenal world. By its
means he is able to give an intelligible interpretation of the
Biblical revelation, and supremely of the Person of Jesus Christ
Plimself; while at the same time he is able to explain the partial
revelations, which, as he holds, have been made to other peoples.
All good and holy men of whatever race have been inspired by the
same Logos, and thus Justin is able to claim that whatever has
been truly said by the sages of all peoples — Socrates and Plato, for
instance — belongs of right to the Christians. The Logos doctrine
as it appears in Justin is undeveloped. Justin is not a great
thinker, and he does not see that his theory of the ‘Spermatic’
Word, present in some degree in all mankind, makes superfluous
his alternative theory that Greek wisdom is historically derived
from the Prophets of the Old Covenant. But though it is easy to
point to inconsistencies and inconsequences in Justin’s thought,
it was none the less a momentous step when Justin raised for
Christian theology — ^almost by accident — the perennial problem
of the relations between faith and reason, ‘natural religion’ and
revelation.
The long Dialogue with Trypho ends with friendly speeches;
it is not stated that Trypho is converted to Christianity. The ob-
ject of the work is mainly an expression in dialogue form of
Justin’s own theology, and thereby of the Church’s attitude to
paganism on the one side and to Judaism on the other. As against
Judaism the Church was determined to hold on to the Old Testa-
ment, interpreting it from a Christian standpoint. The Christian’s
Master was born a Jew; Justin is persuaded that the Israelite
sacred Book spoke of Him, it is therefore the sacred Book of the
Christians; in fact, the Christians are the true Israel and the Jews
are ignorant and blinded heretics. The sacred Book gives the true
origin of man and the earth, and the true account of what will
happen in the future. Justin is not afraid to find elements in the
Graeco-Roman mythology which illustrate the relation of Christ
to the Father of alP, but in general he borrows little from heathen
religion or heathen science. He holds firm to the original
Christian expectation of the coming judgment, the coming resur-
1 See 1, 21 yj. : ■
466, PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [ chap .
rection of the just and the coming thousand years of their glorious
reign in Jerusalem.^
The ‘Address to the Greeks’ of Tatian (date uncertain, perhaps
A.D. 165), Justin’s disciple, is written in a different temper.
Tatian was a Syrian by birth (p. 493) ; and he is animated by a hatred
of the Greeks and of Greek culture. The barbarian origin of the
Christian religion is in its favour. He convicts the Greek religion
of immorality, and the Greek thinkers of error and radical in-
consistency; at great length he establishes that Moses had lived
before the Trojan War and the Heroic Age; and argues that the
Greeks had misunderstood and misused the Old Testament
revelation. The Logos doctrine is less prominent than in Justin
and — ^here again unlike Justin — ^he manifests a rigorous, ascetic
temper which led him eventually to break with the Great Church.
From a literary point of view Tatian’s work marks an advance
upon his predecessors, since, for all his contempt for Greek cul-
ture, he knows how to use the arts of Greek rhetoric to confound
his pagan adversaries.
Athenagoras of Athens, a contemporary of Tatian, in his Sup-
plication concerning the Christians (Trpeafieia vepl XpiaTiav 5 >v)
addressed, it would seem, to Marcus Aurelius and his son Corn-
modus (date uncertain, but probably r. a.d. 177) sets himself to
disprove the calumnies popularly believed of the Christians: in
turn he rebuts the charges of atheism, cannibalism and incest.
The work is better constructed than that of Justin and he
writes far more temperately than does Tatian. He employs an
atticizing Greek and makes some pretension to literary style. He
is not unmindful of the virtues of the Greek sages, and argues that
if Christians now are persecuted by their neighbours that is no
more than befell Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus and Socrates.
But he, too, finds the Greek philosophers inconsistent: Christianity
is for him the true philosophy which has superseded the confused
speculations of the Greeks. The peculiar interest of his work lies
in the picture of the life and character of the early Christian com-
munities and the influence on both of a belief in a bodily resurrec-
tion. The tone of the Apology is well reflected in its closing words:
‘For who are more deserving to obtain the things they ask than
those who, like us, pray for your government that you may, as is
most right, receive the kingdom son from father, and that your
empire may extend and increase, all men becoming subject to your
sway.^ And this is also for our advantage that we may lead a
1 Dial. c. Tryph. 80 s^,, following Rev. xx, 4, 6.
XIII, IV] ATHENAGORAS 467
peaceable and quiet life and may ourselves readily perform all that
is commanded us/
Last in the roll of the second-century Apologists is Theophilus,
who held the see of Antioch in the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and
Commodus. Of the many works which he is known to have
written, the apologetic work Ad Autolycum alone has come down
to us. This Apology, written in flowing and easy Greek, was com-
posed some time after the death of Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 180).
It is the longest and most ambitious of the second-century
Apologies, but it adds little that is new in this type of literature.
IV. THE GNOSTICS
The future of the Christian Religion, and with it the future of
civilization, was destined to go upon lines not very different from
that of Justin Martyr’s synthesis. But meanwhile other formula-
tions of Christianity were being made, formulations which neg-
lected the Old Testament and started from the current philosophy
and the current science. Such were the speculations of Valentinus
and Basilides and the other schools commonly known as gnostics.
Two theories underlie these theologies: one is the Ptolemaic
system of Astronomy, the other is the belief in the immortality of
the soul, imprisoned in a mortal body. The first of these led to
belief in the various systems of Astrology, the second to the doc-
trine expressed in the Greek catchword soma sema ‘the body a
tomb.’ These two theories are quite independent of Jewish and
Christian ideas, but were widely spread in the classical world in
the first two centuries of our era.
What is the shape of the World? The ancient view, attested
among other authorities by the Old Testament, is that it was not
unlike an old-fashioned trunk. Up above, covered by a curved
top, was the Kingdom of Heaven. Below was the Earth, with
pillars at the corners supporting the heavens, with the abode of the
dead underneath. In modern days we believe in the Copernican
system, in which the ball of the earth goes round the S.un, itself
a mere member of the Milky Way. Neither Heaven nor Hell can
be a part of the phenomenal universe, as they were to the ancients.
Between these two views comes the Ptolemaic System. It still
regarded the Earth as the centre of all things, but in so far as it
differed from the old system it was founded upon scientific ob-
servation, upon agreement with observed facts^. Whatever men
might believe, there remained always the impressive spectacle of
^ On these theories see F. C. Cltwreh and Gmm, pp. ^o s^f.
468 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
the fixed stars, revolving night after night round the Pole. These,
once their invariable configuration had been noted, must be
thought of as fixed in a rigid though transparent sphere rotating
round the Earth. And if the stars are fixed in a sphere of this kind,
it seemed reasonable to explain the more unaccountable move-
ments of the other heavenly bodies in a similar way. There must be
similar spheres for the Sun and for the Moon and for the Five
Planets. If these were fixed in their spheres, their spheres must
move irregularly.
The believer in the Ptolemaic astronomy had therefore come to
regard the Earth on which he lived as surrounded by crystal,
transparent, but rigid, spheres, as the heart of an onion is encased
by its outer layers. This view immensely enhanced the importance
of each planet. It was no longer a tiny point of light mysteriously
wandering among the other heavenly bodies, but was the Lx)rd of
a Sphere which encased the Earth itself. If it was high or low
above the ground, nearer or further from other heavenly bodies,
it seemed reasonable to suppose that it exerted a special influence
on the Earth and its inhabitants. And along with this belief there
was another, intimately bound up with the scientific character of
the Ptolemaic system. Whatever might be the rules of the courses
of the planets, the very observations that had led to the construc-
tion of the system had taught the comparative regularity and in-
evitableness with which the heavenly bodies, planets included, do
move. If then the planets (or their spheres) had an influence on
men, that influence came inevitably and inexorably. ‘Astrology,’
the natural child of Ptolemaic astronomy, is a doctrine of Fate, of
inevitable and inexorable Fate.
The soma-sema doctrine may be described as the reverse or
back-view of ‘ the Immortality of the Soul.’ The immortality of the
human soul is not a doctrine taught in the Bible, either in the Old
or New Testament. A vivid belief that the God of all the earth
will in the end do right led most Jews to believe, from the time of
the Maccabaean rising onwards, that martyred saints would not
be unrewarded and that notorious sinners and persecutors, such
as Antiochus Epiphanes, would receive in their own persons the
due punishment for their evil deeds. So arose the belief in the
Resurrection of the Dead. It is a moral doctrine, not a physical
theory. The Greek notion of the immortality of the soul, on the
other hand, is not in itself moral but logical and psychological.
The soul of man, the Psyche, the queer inhabitant of the human
body that in dreams seems to be able to wander outside at will,
only to be imperiously called back on waking, was held by many
Xni, IV] THE 80 MJ-SEMA DOCTRINE 469
Greeks to be immortal. But it was imprisoned in a mortal body,
like a bird in a cage. This body was of earth, of the same or similar
substance as stones and mud and other inanimate things. The soul
on the other hand was ‘ethereal, ’ /.<?. its true nature and abode was
the Upper Air, in the pure region high above the clouds. The
body enclosed it like a tomb : if only the body were dissolved, the
immortal soul was free to mount up to its true home. But, as has
been seen, the victorious Ptolemaic system with its attendant
Astrology had brought in the Spheres, translucent walls of crystal
cutting off Earth from Heaven beyond, cutting off the Soul in
its upward flight. How could the Soul get through.!*
There is yet another problem with which thinkers of this period
were occupied. If there be one God, the ultimate Source of every-
thing, how does this variegated and partly evil world come about,-’
How can One become Two, and part at least of the Two be in
opposition to its original
Christianity, the religion which is essentially a belief that ‘Jesus
appeared in Judaea’ (to use the phrase employed by Mani [p. 5o8p
was a divinely-sent Deliverer of man, had first to explain how this
Jesus was fitted to the Old Testament, the divine vehicle of truth.
But when Christianity had become established in the Graeco-Roman
world and was beginning to attract some of the educated classes
who were uninfluenced by Judaism, it is the questions sketched
above to which ‘Jesus’ required to be fitted. Was it not possible
to set forth the r&le of Jesus in a way that satisfied the cultivated
ideas of modern enlightened society.? This is the setting in which
the various Gnostic sects appeared.
The most famous of the gnostics is Valentinus, whose activity
may be dated about 1 30-1 50. He had a number of disciples, who
were divided into an Eastern and a Western school. His doctrine
survived in Egypt, and both the document called ‘the Apocryphon
of John’ and that called ‘Pistis Sophia^’ seem to be ultiinately
derived from Valentinus’ construction. It is with a description
of Valentinus’ system, probably as set out by his disciple
Ptolemaeus, that Irenaeus begins in his great treatise ‘Against
Heresies’; it is mainly from Irenaeus, rather than from the later
‘Fathers’ who used Irenaeus, that we are able to get a fair estimate
of what Valentinus was attempting to enunciate by his curious
mythology^.
He taught that there was an original Forefather, called also The
Deep (Bythos). With this primordial essence dwelt a Thought
^ See below, p. 472.
2 por the following paragraphs, see Burkitt, op. at. pp. 42 sqq.
470 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
(Ennoia), called also Grace, for it was not conditioned, and Silence,
for it made no sign of its existence. Somehow the immeasurable
Deep made its own Thought fecund, and so Mind (Nous) came
into being; and though it was called Unique it had a correlative
side to it called Truth, It will be noticed that the Pairs are very-
much like the Hegelian Thesis and Antithesis that between them
bring forth a Synthesis. In other words the Valentinian heavenly
hierarchy, known as the Pleroma, is rather philosophical descrip-
tion than mythology. After all, human beings only know of two
kinds of fresh production: there is the thought or idea that seems
to be self-produced from a man’s consciousness, and there is the
new individual that comes from generation in plants and animals.
By the first process the ultimate Forefather of Valentinian theo-
logy conceived His original Thought, and by something analogous
to the second the dumb Thought produced what could be called
Nous. In other words Nous was ‘begotten, not made.’ Nous,
Mind, is an intelligent Understanding, the inevitable counterpart
of which is Truth. For if there be nothing true to understand
there can be no intelligent understanding.
It must also be pointed out that the original Bythos, the hidden
Deep that produced the first Thought out of itself, corresponds in
many ways to the Subliminal Self of modern psychologists. There
is in the human personality an inner treasure-house within us,
impulses good and bad which proceed not so much from our
conscious reasoning powers as from what is called ‘the abysmal
depths of personality,’ i.e. from something corresponding to the
Valentinian word Bythos. It was by a process analogous to that by
which new notions come into our minds out of the unknown
activities of our unconscious selves that the Valentinian Fore-
father produced His first unexpressed Thought.
Many more pairs of Aeons, according to Valentinus, were
formed by a process of a similar kind, the last of which was Design
and Sophia. The last is usually translated ‘Wisdom,’ but a more
appropriate English term is Philosophy. As we are soon to learn,
Sophia's conduct was not marked by true Wisdom, Sophia took no
pleasure in Design. The first Forefather could properly be per-
ceived by Nous alone, by the pure Intelligence. But somehow
Sophia had got a glimpse of this exalted Forefather, and she desired
to have direct intercourse with Him. This was not designed for
her: her search for the Unsearchable was labour and sorrow, and
(to continue the tale) her unauthorized passion somehow made
her fecund with a formless monster. In pain and terror Sophia
cried out for help to be sent to her from the Father and all the
XIII, ir] VALENTINUS 471
Aeons, and so the Father sent to her a new Being called Horos,
who separated her from the monster that she had conceived, and
restored her to her proper condition among the Aeons. Her
monstrous offspring, on the other hand, fell outside the heavenlf
Society (the Pleroma), and became the cause of this sensible and
material world.
It is evident that Valentinus’ account of the origin of things
and of the mixture of good and evil found in this our world was
psychological, akin to the mental processes of our own mind,
which are indeed the only mental processes we know of. ‘ Sophia '
is Philosophy. Philosophy sometimes seems to have a glimpse of
the Deep, that is, of Ultimate Reality; it desires to have direct
touch with Ultimate Reality. The vision of what is ultimate is en-
trancing but intoxicating. Philosophy cannot conceive it in-
telligently and produces only disordered fancies^. What physician,
or rather surgeon, can treat the disordered fancies of Philosophy
Valentinus’ name for him is Horos, i^e. ‘Boundary,’ in other words
true Definition.
Here we come to the most interesting, and at the same time the
most Christian, feature of Valentinian doctrine. Horos, we are
told, had other names meaning Emancipator, Redeemer, etc., but
he is also called ‘Cross’ (stauros), because he ‘crucified away’ the
disordered fancies of Philosophy. This is the Pauline doctrine that
the believer in Christ Jesus has ‘crucified’ the flesh with the
affections {pathematd) and lusts thereof^. It is expounded in the
Acts of John, asecond-century work with ‘Gnostic’ affinities, where
we are told that the real effective Cross is the marking-off {diorismoi)
of all things, a figure not 4- but T, which divides everything be-
low it into ‘right’ and ‘left,’ but above it there is no division®.
The essence of Christianity is contained in the Cross and what
Christians have associated with the Cross. No religious theory
that does not contain a doctrine of the Cross has a right to the
name ‘Christian,’ though from the beginning it was a stumbling-
block, a ‘scandal.’ We have seen how Valentinus incorporates the
Cross as the decisive factor in his drama of salvation: it is just this
that makes his heresy, however erratic and however unorthodox,
a Christian heresy.
The further ramifications of Valentinian cosmogony do not
need to be given here in any detail, including the production of
the heavenly pre-existent Jesus by all the Aeons, so that He has
The word used by Valentinus is Enthymesis. ® Gal. v, 24.
® M. R. James, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 254 sqq. (‘Acts of John’
xiii in Apocrypha Anecdota ii).
472 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [chap.
the virtues of all of them, or again the stages in the production of
the visible world and the world of men, or the ultimate redemption
of ‘Achamoth’ (as they named the disordered fancy of Sophia)
and of those of her offspring who attained to some measure of
true knowledge In the evolution, the fall, and the sub-
sequent reinstatement of ‘Sophia,’ or Philosophy, the essential
ideas of Valentinus are expressed. There is no intellectual neces-
sity for the fall of Sophia, but both as a Greek and as a Christian
Valentinus believed in the empirical fact. As a Greek he held the
somasema theory, that the better, ‘ethereal,’ part of him was im-
prisoned in gross matter; while as a Christian he found a doctrine
of the Fall of Man, from the effects of which the Son of God had
come down to earth to deliver those who received Him. Like
Mani after him, Valentinus felt that the Fall must have happened
in essence before this world, this mixed world, came into being.
The world on this theory is the result of the Fall, the Fall is not a
regrettable accident which occurred soon after it came into being.
According to Valentinus pure Mind is clear, disordered Mind is
‘foggy’; fog is the beginning of Matter!
The system of Valentinus, given above, is the most notable of
all the gnostic systems. But there were others, some elaborations
or modifications of Valentinian theory, others combinations of
parts of it with theories connected with the numerical values of the
Alphabet (similar to what Jews call Gematria), or with elaborations
of Christian ceremonies such as the Eucharist. These last are par-
ticularly connected with one Marcus, who appears to have com-
bined the Valentinian mythology with various tricks of legerde-
main, rather resembling some of the stances of modern pseudo-
mediums. The Coptic treatises found in the Askew ms. in the
British Museum, known as Pistis Sophia, contain descriptions of
some of these pseudo-eucharists^. These Coptic tracts are later,
but they have some sort of connection with Valentinian doctrine:
they show the belief that through ‘Jesus the Saviour’ and the
mysteries which He institutes the true gnostic, when set free from
the body, becomes a ray which cannot be seized by the Archons
and rulers of the lower heavens, but passes direct to the regions
where it belongs and becomes a part of the One Ineffable itself.
‘Such a man,’ says the gnostic Jesus, ‘is a man in the world, but
he is King in the Light. He is a man in the world, but he is not
one of the world, and Amen, I say to you, that man is I and I am
that man^.’
1 Pistis Sophia 373-6: monstrous varieties are referred to in ib. 387.
® lb. 230.
XIII. IV] ‘SOPHIA’ 473
Two other systems demand notice here, that given in the
Apocryfhon of John and that of Basilides. The ‘Apocryphon of
John’ is the name of a work, fragments of which have been pre-
served at Berlin for nearly forty yearsA What makes this obscure
and fragmentary work particularly important is that it is obviously
the exposition of a gnostic system described and controverted by
Irenaeus at the end of his first Book against Heresies^. In the
Apocryphon Jesus appears in a vision to John the Apostle and re-
veals Himself as ‘the Father, the Mother, and the Son.’ The
original Source of all things, corresponding to the Valentinian
Bythos or Deep, is depicted as dwelling in His own clear and
tranquil Light, which is the Fountain of the Water of Life. Out
of the depths of His own pure essence comes His own Ennoia or
Thought, just as in the system of Valentinus, but She is given
(without explanation) the name Barbelo. This All-Mother, which
occurs in the Pistis Sophia tracts, is always represented as a kindly,
sympathetic personage, unlike the oddly-named Demiurge or
Archon who formed this material world, called Sabaoth or
laldahaoth or similar names, which seem to have been derived or
corrupted from the Greek Old Testament. Barbelo does not ap-
pear to have any Semitic derivation: it seems to be adapted from
the Coptic helblle^ a ‘seed’ or ‘grain.’ Thus while Greek specula-
tion traced the first beginnings of things to a Thought or Notion,
the more concrete Egyptian mind thought of a Seed.
Basilides, a contemporary of Valentinus, produced an inde-
pendent system, which seems to have made a certain impression,
but attracted less followers or modifications than the Valentinian
theology. Basilides conceived that there were 36^; heavens, each
superior to the other. Each was less concrete, less material, than
the one below it, till at last in the ultimate region, the cause of all
those below it, we arrive at what is altogether Nothing!® No
doubt this queer theory is an attempt to explain how diversity
could come out of unity, or the concrete out of the undifferentiated,
but the fact is that we do not know, any more than we know the
real nature of our own consciousness of ourselves or of other
things. The 365 heavens of Basilides seem to be nothing more
than an attempt to acquit the Heavenly Power of responsibility
for letting this material concrete world come into existence.
^ It is not yet published, but a very full account of it is given by Prof. Carl
Schmidt in Philotesia, P. Kleimrt %um LXxGehurtstagdargebracht, pp. 3 1 7—56.
Similar to the Apocryphon of John is ‘ Setheus, an ancient Coptic text bound
up in the Bruce Papyri at Oxford.
® adv. Haer. 1, 27. ® Hippolytus, Reftit. vii, 20.
474 PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHURCH [ghap.
V. IRENAEUS
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons at the end of the second century, is
a milestone in the history of the Christian Church. He was a
native of Asia Minor and had in his youth known Polycarp, bishop
of Smyrna, who was martyred in February, 1 5 5 or 1 56, at the age
of 86^. This Polycarp is a link between the ‘apostolic’ age, which,
so to speak, ended with Ignatius, and the age of Irenaeus, which
marks the fully developed Catholic system. It seems that Irenaeus’
statement that Polycarp was acquainted with the Apostle John is
mistaken^, but he may well have known the mysterious Elder
John of Ephesus, who had ‘seen the Lord.’ He must also have
known Ariston, first bishop of Smyrna, of whom the same is said,
but Polycarp’s immediate predecessor was one Bucolus.
The long period of Polycarp’s episcopacy almost covers the
period between the writing of the later books of the New Testa-
ment and their acceptance as canonical. This is why the theory
that Polycarp’s ‘Epistle’ to the Philippians consists of two letters
run together is important. The last two chapters are a short letter
written soon after Ignatius had passed through Philippi, before he
had arrived in Rome for martyrdom : in the first twelve Polycarp
is giving advice in answer to a request and the whole tone is far
more appropriate to his venerable old age®. It is not surprising,
therefore, that in this part Polycarp refers not only to i Corinthians
but also to I Peter (possibly written by his predecessor Ariston
of Smyrna), and probably to 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, 2 Thes-
salonians, i Timothy and i John, in other words to a body of
writings not unlike the New Testament as finally accepted.
To come back to Irenaeus : he was chosen bishop of Lyons
after the persecution there in 177, of which the account, pre-
served by Eusebius, may be from his pen. During the next ten
years appeared his eminently successful treatise known as the
Five Books against Heresies^. His main argument is that the
teaching of the Apostles has been handed on by successors, whose
names can be adduced, to the churches of his own time; in
particular that the Church was founded in Rome by Peter and
Paul and from that day onwards their successors are known,
^ For the date, see C. H. Turner, Studio Bihlica, n, pp. 128, 154.
^ From the arguments of B. H. Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 186,
266.
® See P. N. Harrison, Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Philippians.
* So successful that a fragment of Book in, written c. a.d. 200, was found
in the dust-heapsof Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (P. Oxy. in, 405, cf. ih. iv, p. 264).
XIII, V] IKE-NAEUS JGJINST HERESIES 475
without a break to Eleutherus the present bishop, that there
has been complete continuity, and that Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John, the fourfold Gospel of the universal Church, give the true
account of Jesus Christ. There is nothing in these of the doctrines
of Valentinus or any other gnostic. Along with the Four Gospels
Irenaeus appeals to the Acts and to the Epistles of Paul and of
John — in a word, to the New Testament. What, judged by these
authorities, is apostolic is right; what is not to be found in them
is wrong. The development of Christian ideas for the future will
tend to be an unfolding— an ‘evolution’ in the older sense of the
word as opposed to ^epigenesis ’ — of dicta enunciated by apostles
and preserved in approved and therefore authoritative writings.
A word should be said here of the Epideixis, a work of Irenaeus
the full title of which is ‘The Demonstration of the Apostolic
Preaching.’ This work, mentioned by Eusebius^, was long lost,
but turned up in an Armenian version in 1904®. It was written
about 1 90, after the Against Heresies-, and gives the main beliefs
about God and human history held by Irenaeus. Apart from a few
curiosities of expression, such as describing the Word and the
Spirit as the ‘hands’ of the Father, it sounds commonplace now-
adays, but that is chiefly because the main lines of Christian theo-
logy and of Biblical interpretation followed the same course down
to a hundred years ago, down to such books as Line upon Line.
In Irenaeus Christian ideas about God and man had attained the
outline which later ages did little more than fill in and polish, and
the Bible is used to support these ideas by a system of allusion and
indication, which to modern notions of the interpretation of
ancient documents is strangely fanciful and unnatural.
1 Hist. Eccl. V, 26.
2 The best edition is the English version by Dr J. Armitage Robinson.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN
THE EAST
I. GREEK-SPEAKING CHRISTIANITY
T he work of Irenaeus of Lyons Against Heresies^ published
about A.D. 1 8 8, is, as was said above, a milestone in the
history of the Church^. Irenaeus had come from Asia Minor, he
was in touch with Rome, he wrote in Greek in southern Gaul, and
his work found an immediate public in Egypt. But after his time
comes a change : the older centres of Greek-speaking Christianity
declined in influence. In the West Latin became the vehicle of
Christian thought and writing at Rome as well as at Carthage.
The anti-Pope Hippolytus (who died in the persecution under
Maximinus Thrax c. 236) is the last spokesman of Greek-
speaking Roman Christianity^. Meanwhile from Syria and Asia
Minor as well as from Greece nothing of importance appeared.
But in the first half of the third century Greek-speaking Chris-
tianity found new centres in Alexandria and in Palestinian Caes-
area, the influence of which was felt throughout the Churches of
the East.
The prosperous age of the Antonines had closed in the reign of
Marcus with war and pestilence, and thereafter there had set in a
period of economic decline and of public disturbance threatening
collapse to the civilization of the Empire. This deterioration and
the Imperial recovery which came in the last quarter of the century
are treated elsewhere in this history (chaps, v— vi, ix). Here we are
concerned to notice that it was during this period of imperial dis-
integration that the Christian Church, in spite of persecution,
firmly established itself in the society of the Empire and enlisted
in its defence some of the leading minds of the age. There was no
abrupt change from the Christianity of the Great Church of the
second century, and the Alexandrian Fathers may be regarded as
the successors of Justin and the Greek apologists. But the position
of the leading writers of the Church in relation to the world about
them became wholly different: the important part which Justin
^ See above, p. 474. ® See below, p. 534.
XIV, r] JULIUS AFRICANUS 477
played in the internal development of the Church cannot mitigate
the judgment that he was a poor writer and a confused thinker
very imperfectly abreast of the culture of his age; but in the third
century there were scholars and thinkers within the Church who
had learned most of what the culture of their age had to give, and
who laid foundations on which a Christianized society could build
in succeeding centuries. The Alexandrian Fathers, Clement and
Origen, were the most illustrious representatives of this new
Christian culture, but throughout the empire the social status of
the Church was rising, and influential Christian writers in the
Greek-speaking empire were not confined to Egypt.
To begin with tlae writing of history: the familiar apologetic
contention of Jews and Christians that the Mosaic writings were
anterior to the heroic age of Greece, and were a source used by
Greek writers themselves, was now translated into a scientific
form which was to provide the framework of historiography for
centuries to come. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, already men-
tioned as the latest of the second-century Greek apologists, makes
reference to an earlier work of his own (irepi icrTopi(uv) dealing
with the early history of mankind^. This book has entirely dis-
appeared and we know nothing in detail of its method. In the next
generation, a Christian writer, Julius Africanus, produced a monu-
mental work on world-history which attained a widespread and
enduring celebrity. It is still known to us in part from surviving
fragments, and also through the mediiun of the later Chronica of
Eusebius, which were largely based upon it. Julius Africanus,
born, it seems, at Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), had served for a
time as an officer in the army of Severus, and was on terms of
intimacy with the Christian dynasty at Edessa. Much of his life
was spent at Emmaus (Nicopolis) in Palestine. His published
writings included an encyclopaedic work entitled Ejcstoi dealing
with a large variety of subjects ranging from military tactics to
magic. From a papyrus fragment of the eighteenth book of this
work, we learn that Julius was charged with the duty of con-
structing a library for the Emperor Severus Alexander at Rome in
the Pantheon^. His Chronicles gave a synchronistic history of the
peoples of the world. The Biblical chronology provided the cadre
for the work as a whole, but for the later period he used the
reckoning by Olympiads. According to Julius Africanus, the
present world was to last in all for six thousand years. Of these six
thousand years, three thousand carried the history down to Peleg
1 ad Aatol. ri, 28 and 30.
® Grenfell and Hynt, A O^y. iii, p. 39. ; '
478 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [ chap .
son of Eber^ and 2500 from Peleg to Jesus Christ^. Thus when
the book appeared in the fourth year of Elagabalus, a . d . 221, its
readers were encouraged to look forward to a period of some three
centuries before the coming of that last millennial period, the
‘Sabbath’ of the world, which was to succeed the six thousand
years of history. If the interval seems short, yet the scheme shows
that in the expectation of the author the millennial Kingdom of
Christ had retired into a fairly distant future. Apocalyptic Chris-
tianity was accommodating itself to a world which was at least
temporarily stable.
Together with a new scientific construction of world-history
based upon the scriptures of the Christian Church, the first half of
the third century witnessed the rise at Alexandria of a Christian
philosophy of the universe, founded upon the same authority.
The origins of Christianity in Egypt are wrapped in obscurity.
The earliest names associated with the new Faith at Alexandria
are those of eminent heretics: Basilides, Valentinus, and the Mar-
cionite Apelles. The Gospel of St John was certainly current in
Egypt well before the middle of the second century®. Whether or
not the other canonical Gospels were received at the same period
is unknown. In any event, the Egyptian Christians had an in-
digenous Gospel of their own, The Gospel according to the Egyptians^
and this was tainted with gnostic influence. It has been plausibly
conjectured that the earliest Alexandrian Christianity was largely
gnostic in character, and that this explains the meagreness of our
information as to its history. In later centuries the patriarchal See
of Alexandria unlike the other patriarchates maintained relations
of dose friendship and even a measure of subordination to the See
of Rome, and the suggestion has been made that this relationship
originated in help which the Roman Church supplied in freeing
the Church of Alexandria from heretical domination, and that the
later legend of the evangelization of Alexandria by St Mark (un-
known to Clement and Origen and still absent from the earliest
Latin Gospel prologues)^ reflects the same mission from Rome to
Egypt. Be this as it may, when the Alexandrian Church emerges
into the light of history in the later years of the second century, we
find its leading teacher Clement at one with the Great Church in
^ Gen. X. 25. The name means ‘Division’ and is interpreted in Genesis
of the division of the earth which is said to have taken place in the days of
Peleg. Julius interprets it also of the division of time.
® Fragments in Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae\ n, pp. 244, 245, 306.
® See C. H. Roberts, jin unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel.
* D. de Bruyne in Revue binidictine, XL, 1928, pp. 196 sqq.
XIV, I] THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL 479
acknowledging the Rule of Faith, the fourfold Gospel and a
Canon of other New Testament scriptures in the main identical
with that received elsewhere. Again Clement and his successor
Origen are at one with the Great Church in repudiating the aber-
rations of the gnostic systems and the gnostic attitude of ex-
clusiveness in relation to the faith of ordinary Christians. But they
stand for a new type of Christianity which is zealous to claim the
title of gnostic for the fully instructed believer. With this goes a
new attitude towards philosophy. Whereas the earlier apologists
had written mainly in a polemical spirit to defend Christianity
against attack and to expose the weaknesses of paganism, the
Alexandrian Fathers tend quietly to assume the inherent superi-
ority of the Christian dispensation and make constructive use of
a Platonizing philosophy to expound and to elucidate the Church’s
faith.
These theologians gave their teaching in what came to be
known as the Catechetical School. This was something more than
a school of instruction for those seeking baptism. It probably
grew up as an informal association of pupils around an illustrious
teacher. At a later date it came to be a kind of Christian College
or University in which oral instruction was given to inquirers of
all kinds. Origen incorporated into his educational course the
study of logic, dialectic, natural science, geometry and astronomy
as a propaedeutic for the higher pursuits of ethics and theology.
How far this comprehensive system of education is to be ascribed
to Origen ’s own initiative, and how far it had its roots in earlier
practice, it is scarcely possible to say.
The first teacher of the School to attain fame was one Pantaenus,
who is said also to have gone on a missionary expedition to ‘ India,’
but his works have not been preserved^. His successor, known as
Clement of Alexandria, occupied the chair for about the last twenty
years of the second century. He describes himself as an Athenian,
was a pagan by birth and had picked up a varied knowledge of
Classical lore (perhaps rather from extracts and florilegia than
from a study of originals), and we have from him a very great part
of a sort of Introduction to Christianity that throws a vivid light
on the intellectual conditions of the age which witnessed a move-
ment of Greek culture towards the new religion and an influencing
of the new religion by Greek culture. The Address to Greeks sets
forth the attraction of Christianity, the Tutor explains the general
way of life and conduct appropriate for Christians, the Misc-
1 Clement {Ed. Proph. 56) says that Pantaenus taught that the Prophets
used the present sometimes for the future and sometimes for the past.
48 o the church IN THE EAST [chap.
ellanies is an unmethodical collection, mainly concerned with the
portrait of the true ‘gnostic,’ i.e. the enlightened Christian who
understands from philosophy and intelligence the reasons and
true significance of the Christian life.
Clement takes over the familiar polemic against the old myth-
ology and the current defence of the superior antiquity of the Old
Testament. But in his hands polemic is subordinate to a quiet in-
sistence upon the educative function of the Logos throughout the
history of mankind. The process of revelation, fulfilled when the
Logos appeared as man in Jesus Christ, is one in all its stages.
Both the Jewish law and Greek philosophy were preparations for
that fuller truth which was to come. In his conception of human
nature Clement remains close to Platonic tradition. Man is a free
being, bearing himself the responsibility for his destiny- — Alria
ikojx&ov @€os avaLTCo<s. From the beginning of the creation man
has received the breath of God’s spirit. To train and perfect this
divine gift is the function of the Logos. Deification or likeness to
God is the final goal of human life, and in Christ the divine pur-
pose expressed in the words ‘Let us make man after our image and
our likeness’ has already been fulfilled.
Writing for a society more or less leisured and educated,
Clement warns his readers at length and in detail against the perils
of licence, luxury, and extravagance. Yet he is no foe to the re-
finements of culture, nor would he have his readers renounce the
world. A genuine appreciation of the spirit of Greek culture is
discernible in his writings. Christ, Clement teaches, does not ex-
clude the rich man as such from the Kingdom of God; rather
would he have him mortify his attachment to the goods of the
world and use them for a worthy purpose. The common life is to
be Christianized, not renounced^.
Clement is weakest on the side of constructive thought. He had
intended to complete his trilogy with a ‘ Didaskalos’ expounding
the fuller doctrine of the Revelation of the Word. This he was
never able to achieve. His attempts at systematic doctrine are
confused, and he habitually falls back in his discursive manner
upon the practical duties of the Christian life and the apologetic
presentation of the faith wherein his chief interest lay.
The real value of Clement’s writing, apart from his citations of
other authors, sacred and profane, consists in the picture that he
unconsciously draws of a paganism attracted by the Christian
system and willing to accept it if it can be shown to be not incon-
sistent with a cultivated and enlightened view of the universe, and
^ ^is dives salvetur, 12—14.
XIV, i] CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 481
on the other hand of a Christianity willing to express its beliefs in
a way consistent with the best Pagan culture. Of the two beliefs
with which we set out, viz. the Bible and the Second Coming of
Christ, little is said of the latter, and with regard to the former the
method of allegory in Clement’s hands succeeds in making the
natural meaning little more than a belief for those who have not
attained to what Clement calls a ‘gnostic’ view.
Clement left Alexandria when the persecution of Septimius
Severus broke out there (p. 18), and seems to have died in Pales-
tine. He was succeeded in a.d. 203 in the headship of the Cate-
chetical School by the youthful Origen.
Clement has been thrown into the shade by his successor.
Where Clement was weak, Origen was strong. In him for the
first time the Church found a theologian who united a firm ad-
herence to the Rule of Faith with a mastery of Greek philosophical
thought, and who knew how to blend these two strains into a
single coherent system. This great achievement created the pre-
suppositions of all the later development of Greek theology. The
theologians who called Origen blessed and those who execrated
his memory were alike the products of the new Christian world
which he, more than any man, had brought into being. Between
the age of the Councils and the rude beginnings of Christian
theology in the first and second centuries there stands the achieve-
ment of Origen, believer, thinker and, albeit uncanonized, saint.
Origen was born in or about the year 18 ^. His parents were
Christian. His father, Leonidas, was martyred at Alexandria in the
Severan persecution, and Origen was only prevented from joining
him by his mother, who hid his clothes. The boy was well educated,
and after his father’s death and the seizure of his father's property
by the State, he maintained himself by teaching; a couple of years
later, when he was only nineteen, he had begun secretly to instruct
pagan pupils in the Faith, idearing of this, Demetrius, the
bishop of Alexandria, appointed him head of the Catechetical
School, now vacant through persecution, a post which he held for
many years.
How Origen escaped the persecution is not known, but that is
no more curious than the case of Tertullian, or of Konna, bishop
of Edessa during Diocletian’s day^. His learning and Christian
faith are undoubted. So is also his over-enthusiastic zeal, which
led him to castrate himself, in a too literal following of Matthew
xix. 12. This act was disapproved, but it did not diminish the
affection with which his pupils regarded him, of which we have
1 See below, p. 500.
482 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
a proof in the Panegyric addressed to him at a somewhat later
time by Gregory known as Thaumaturgus, the Wonder-worker,
afterwards the evangelizer of his native Cappadocia, who had
come to learn law at Berytus, but, meeting with Origen, became
a Christian scholar and eventually a bishop. A long and fruitful
period of study and teaching at Alexandria ended in the tenth year
of Severus Alexander (a.d. 232), when a quarrel with Demetrius
his Bishop led to Origen’s final removal to Caesarea, where he
continued his work as a teacher. He died at Tyre in a.d. 253 at
the age of sixty-nine, his health broken by imprisonment and
torture during the Decian persecution of 2 50.
Of the immense body of Origen’s writings but a fragment sur-
vives in the original. His great apologetic work, the eight books
Contra Celsumy hzs come down to us intact; nine of the forty
volumes of the Commentary on St John survive, and eight of the
twenty-five volumes of the Commentary on St Matthew as well as
some homilies on Jeremiah. We have, too, the florilegium of ex-
tracts from Origen compiled by St Basil and St Gregory Nazian-
zen, called the Philocalia\ also treatises on Prayer and on Martyr-
dom. A larger proportion of his work is known to us only through
the medium of Latin translations. Where these can be tested they
are shown to have been seriously and frequently altered to suit the
exigencies of a later standard of orthodoxy. Especially is this true
of the great dogmatic work de frincipiis (jrepl dpxSiv), which is
known to us as a whole only through the translation of Rufinus.
This translation allows us to discern the plan and proportions of
the original; but fragments of the original Greek extracted by
Justinian as texts to be condemned, together with extracts from
the accurate rendering by St Jerome preserved in his letter to
Avitus, prove how seriously Rufinus tampered with the text.
A restoration of Origen’s own system, securely based upon sur-
viving Greek material and upon Latin translations only where
they can be controlled by Greek parallels, is an achievement which
has been reserved for the scholarship of this present century.
While still a young man at Alexandria, Origen had attended
the philosophical lectures of the founder of Neoplatonism,
Ammonius Saccas, and thus gained a thorough knowledge of the
philosophical thought of his age. This knowledge he applied to
the elucidation of the faith which he had received, and to which he
was whole-heartedly devoted. The means whereby he was able to
co-ordinate his philosophical system with the faith of the Church
he found at hand in the principle of allegorical interpretation of
scripture, the method of which he expounds and justifies at length
XIV, I] ORIGEN 483
in the last of the four books dePrincipiis. In the earlier books of this
work, he states his system constructively. For Origen as a Platonist
philosopher true being is incorporeal being, grounded in the one
Supreme God. Eternally with God Himself is the Logos, or Son
of God, who, though not God Himself (o 0eos), is yet truly, though
subordinately, God (^eos without the definite article). Along
with Father and Son, the Rule of Faith taught Origen to recognize
the Holy Spirit. These three Beings form a Trinity, but a graded
Trinity of three distinct Beings (over tat or u-voo-raVet?), not a co-
equal Trinity within a single overia. Eternal existence is likewise
to be predicated of a number of dependent intelligences, endowed
with a freedom of choice, whom God eternally creates through His
Logos or Son. Origen then proceeds to deal with the visible
material world and the souls which inhabit it. The origin of this
world he traces to the falling away of created intelligences from
the God who made them in consequence of ‘a satiety of the love
and contemplation of God^.’ Corporeal existence is a lower stage
to which minds (now ‘cooled,’ dvoxpvyevTa, into souls, xJ/vxaC) are
condemned in consequence of their apostasy. Thus, this our world
with its manifold grades of being — ^angels, the heavenly bodies,
men, beasts and demons — has issued from an antecedent fall.
From these conditions the Divine Logos, made one with an in-
telligence which had not swerved from God and which was the
human soul of Jesus, brings redemption. After passing through
death, Christ has opened to those who follow Him the way of
ultimate release from corporeal existence and of return to God.
This world of ours, as distinct from the eternal created world,
has had a beginning in time. There have been worlds before it,
and there will be worlds after it^. The endowment of free will, with
the possibility which it entails of alienation from God, may be
expected to issue in a new fall and a new world. But beyond the
temporal succession of worlds is the eternal living Purpose of
God, which will be realized in the final restoration of all living
souls (including the Prince of Evil himself) into union with the
Godhead when the hampering restrictions of bodily existence are
laid aside. We may here observe one great innovation upon the
Church’s faith as it had been generally accepted in the second
century. Origen’s system leaves no room for the expectation of a
millennial reign of Christ on earth.
It is plain that this great system is no mere development of
scriptural doctrines. Though Origen’s doctrine is very far from
1 de Prim, ii, 8, 3, Koetschau, p. 159,
2 de Prim, in, 5, 1-15, with note in Koetschau, p. 273,
31-s
484 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
being identical with the system of a gnostic such as Valentinus,
yet there is a trae analogy between Origen’s doctrine of the ante-
natal fall of intelligences as causeof the ‘casting down’ (so Origen
interprets TcaTaySoX?;) of the world, and the fall of with its
outcome as taught by the great gnostic^. Again, Origen’s leading
doctrine of the Logos is one in fundamental principle with the
mediator Logos of later Greek thought. The systematic applica-
tion of this concept in Christian theology was to entail grave con-
sequences, but these seem not to have become generally apparent
when Origen wrote. For all its audacity, it does not appear that
his system caused offence when he put it out. The troubles in
which he was personally involved sprang from questions of
Church order and personal jealousy rather than from doubts as to
his doctrinal orthodoxy.
It is congruous with Origen’s conception of the nature of theo-
logy that the greater part of his writings took the form of scientific
exegesis of the books of Scripture or of more popular scriptural
homilies delivered in the congregation of the faithful. The greater
part of the surviving Latin translations of Origen is of those works
of biblical exegesis. Even where Origen’s system was condemned
and neglected, his contributions to exegesis maintained their place.
Here too a word must be said. Like others who have been inclined
to draw elaborate conclusions from the letter of a sacred text — ^the
Jewish Rabbi Akiba was an instance a century earlier — Origen
devoted much attention to the wording of the Hebrew Bible and
tried to correct the current Greek version, commonly known now
as the Septuagint. He knew a little Hebrew, enough to appreciate
the three later Jewish translators, Aquila, Symmachus and Theo-
dotion. These he incorporated into a work known as the Hexapla,
which exhibited in parallel columns the Hebrew Old Testament,
the Hebrew transliterated into Greek, Aquila, Symmachus, the
Septuagint and Theodotion. The Septuagint column was a revision
made by Origen ; he corrected certain things, mostly proper names,
to agree with the Hebrew, and made certain transpositions with
the same object. Besides these alterations he marked with an
asterisk (*•••) passages not in the Septuagint which he added
from Theodotion or Aquila, and with an obelus (- 4 - . . . ^) pas-
sages found in the Septuagint but absent from the Hebrew.
The Hexafla itself, a colossal work, six times the size of the Old
Testament, has perished, but some manuscripts of the Greek Old
Testament and some Church Fathers preserve extracts. Part of
^ See above, pp. 469
^ The form -s- also occurs, as well as other signs.
XIV, I] TEE HEXJPLJ 485
two vellum leaves, containing a copy of the Hexaplar text of
Psalm xxii, survive at Cambridge: they came from the lumber-
room (Genlza) of the Old Synagogue at Cairo, as a bit of a palimp-
sest with Hebrew medieval writing on the top^. A compendium
o( th& Hexapla, called thc Tetrapla, with only four columns on the
open page omitting the Hebrew), seems to have been made
by Origen, but that also is lost. Large portions of a Syriac trans-
lation of the Septuagint column, with many extracts of renderings
by Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, known as the Syro-
Hexaplar, also survive, but the main result of Origen’s under-
taking consists in corruptions and interpolations in the manu-
scripts of the Greek Old Testament, derived from consulting the
manuscript of the Hexapla, which for many centuries found a
home in Caesarea, in the library founded there by Pamphilus, the
patron of Eusebius the Church historian.
It is difficult for modern scholarship to assess Origen at his true
historical value. Modern scholarship is essentially critical, Origen
is both credulous and unhistorical. Every writing that Church
authority allowed him to receive he was willing to allegorize and
to interpret as teaching what he considered to be the Church’s
doctrine. When a learned contemporary, Julius Africanus, put
before Origen serious and indeed incontrovertible arguments for
the Greek origin of the story of Susanna, Origen failed to feel their
force. Again, he said it would be a disgrace for the Church to
have to resort to the Jews for pure texts of the Scriptures !
In the Contra Celsum published in 248, on the eve of the Decian
persecution, when Origen was over sixty years of age, we have the
greatest of the Greek apologies for the Christian religion. Each
of the two antagonists who meet in this work is a worthy repre-
sentative of his cause. The True word of Celsus had been written
under Marcus Aurelius contemporaneously with the earlier Greek
apologetic literature. Its author was a pagan imbued with a
Platonizing philosophy who was concerned at the rising power of
the Christian faith wherein he saw a threat to the stability of
society and the State. He rebuts the claims of the new religion;
sees in Jesus an impostor who relied on thaumaturgic powers, and
urges the complaint that Christianity makes its appeal to a blind
faith. He shows himself to be conversant with the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures and with the actual beliefs of Christians of his
time. He does not confine himself to attack, but ends with an
appeal to Christians to support the Empire, in whose welfare they
1 There exists also a palimpsest of the Psalms in the Ambrosian Library
at Milan, with Greek writing above.
486 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
have no less interest than their pagan fellow-citizens. Why, he
asks, should they not respect its religious observances, even if they
are not willing to abandon their own.? and why should they not
take their share in its defence .?
We have no means of knowing how this book was received
when it was published, nor whether it had called forth attention
among Christians at the time. Perhaps not. Origen, at any rate,
seems not to have known the book until his friend Ambrosius
prompted him to write a reply. Origen follows the argument of
Celsus from point to point so closely that it is probably possible
to reconstruct the original almost in its entirety from his refuta-
tion, In spite of a diffuse and somewhat laboured style, Origen’s
answer is a noble defence of the Christian faith. He shows himself
to be learned in all the wisdom of the Greeks, and while he meets
the anti-Christian polemic of Celsus with patience, courtesy and
discernment, he does not fail to recognize that there is much in
Celsus’ own teaching of which he can approve. He shares his
reverence for Plato and accepts the same fundamental conception
of the Deity. Even in dealing with Celsus’s criticisms of Chris-
tianity, Origen is himself sufficiently Greek in thought and feeling
to admit implicitly the force of some of his antagonists’ conten-
tions. If Celsus points the finger of scorn at the crucified Jesus as
an impossible Deity for a thinking man, Origen does not reply
with a Pauline ‘glorying in the Cross.’ His own presuppositions
are so far in harmony with those of Celsus that he takes the line
of explaining that the sufferings were a part of the experience of
the human body and soul of Jesus, and makes it plain that they
are not to be thought to involve the Divine Logos Himself.
In the Contra Cehum^ as elsewhere, Origen makes full use of
Greek philosophical conceptions to elucidate the Christian faith.
But he yields nothing to the spirit and the claims of the pagan
State. First and foremost, he is a devout Christian, ready to suffer
martyrdom for his faith. Plato himself falls under Origen’s
criticism for combining his philosophy with an acceptance of the
gods of the State. He himself will make no compromise, and
though, with Melito, he can recognize a Providential purpose in
the world-wide Empire of Rome, in that it had facilitated the
spread of the Christian faith into all lands^, he will allow of no
unqualified loyalty to the State. Prayers should be offered for a
sovereign if he be good, and for soldiers if they are engaged in a
just war. If, he further urges, the custom of the Empire exempts
the holders of certain priesthoods from military service lest they
1 contra Celsum, ii, 30.
XIV, i] THE CONTRJ CBLSUM 487
should incur the pollution of blood, it is not an unreasonable claim
that a priestly people which offers pure prayers to God should be
released from the same requirement. Their prayers, he argues, will
be more beneficial to rulers than help in arms, for by prayer they
will be able to confound the demons who are responsible for stirring
up war. Nor will Origen make any response when Celsus exhorts
Christians to undertake the duties of public office. Christians
know of another corporate body (aX,Xo onJcrri^/ia irarptSos) esta-
blished within each city which has yet higher claims upon their
services — ^a body which is governed by men chosen not for their
ambition, but for their modesty.
The reconciliation of Church and State is not yet in view : for all
Origen’s knowledge of Greek literature and his indebtedness to
Greek philosophy, he is alienated — ^more profoundly than his
predecessor Clement — -from the old pagan culture and its champion
the pagan State. The spirit of the martyrs was in him, and inspired
his life as it sustained his end.
After Origen left Alexandria, the headship of the Catechetical
School was given to Heraclas, who afterwards became bishop of
Alexandria. His successor in both posts was Dionysius (248-265),
who demands mention as a characteristic representative of Alex-
andrian Christianity. He was an active and energetic bishop, who
endured a persecution, and after returning from banishment found
himself involved in the thorny questions of the readmission of
penitents who had complied with the orders of the government^.
From a tale told in Eusebius^ we see that he was a believer in the
almost magical virtue of the consecrated Eucharist. But how far
the Church had now travelled from the point from which we
started can be gathered from his treatment of the Apocalypse®.
Dionysius had come across the work of one Nepos, an Egyptian
bishop then deceased, called Refutation of Allegorists\ in this
work Nepos had set forth the old belief in a Reign of Christ on
this earth for a thousand years, attesting it by the witness of the
Apocalypse of John^. That, or something differing from it only in
minor detail, had been the Christian Hope; now it was fading
away, and its supporters were held to have peculiar opinions and
to interpret Scriptures 'after a somewhat Jewish fashion,’ i.e,
literally and not as an allegoty. Eusebius tells us that Dionysius
was not content with allegorizing. He was willing to admit that
the writer of the Apocalypse had had a real vision and was named
John, but he could not have been the John who wrote the Gospel
1 See below, p. 521 j-j. ® Hist. Bed. vi, 44.
® Eusebius, Hist. Bed va, 24 sf. * xx, 4 s^q. , , 1 ' : ,
488 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
and the Epistles: the style of the Apocalypse (he says) is different,
indeed barbarous, and the themes specially characteristic of the
Gospel are absent from it. No more able piece of literary criticism
is to be found in ancient Christian literature, except the critique of
Susanna by Julius Africanus mentioned above. It shews the
power of ruling ideas that Dionysius felt himself free to pass so
sharp and scientific a judgment upon an early Christian work
which had been definitely accepted by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus
in the century before, but which, under the influence of teaching
such as that of Clement and Origen, was now out of fashion.
The Churches of Asia Minor were amongst the earliest and
most active centres of Christianity, and about the year 190 Poly-
crates of Ephesus maintained against Victor of Rome the Asiatic
custom of celebrating the Lord’s Passion by the days of the Jewish
month, even if this custom made Easter to fall otherwise than on
a Sunday^. Polycrates in his letter to Victor^ enumerates the great
stars of Asia, Philip of ‘the twelve apostles,’ John who lay on the
Lord’s breast, besides Polycarp and others.
It is clear that Anatolia (to use the most general term) was then
a leading Christian region, but from that day its influence de-
clined. This does not mean that Christianity ceased to be practised
or even to spread there, but the epigraphical evidence suggests
that it had taken on an unobtrusive form that refrained from
offending heathen neighbours by stressing Christian symbols.
A fish or a swastika inserted among the ornamentation of a tomb
reveals to the modern archaeologist that the monument com-
memorates a Christian who reverenced ‘Jesus Christ the Son of
God’ and His Cross, but to contemporaries it might suggest no
esoteric meaning.
A remarkable instance of this tendency is to be found in the
inscription of Avircius Marcellus®, to whom was dedicated a work
against the Montanists. A late and legendary life of St ‘ Abercius ’
tells how he went miraculously to Rome and healed the emperor’s
daughter, giving also the words which he set up on his gravestone.
The whole tale seemed quite unworthy of serious notice, but in
^ It should be noted that the view of the ^artodecimans, as the Asiatic
Christians were called, was that the question at issue was the annual com-
memoration of the Passion of Jesus: the Resurrection was celebrated every
Sunday.
® Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 24. See on this N. 'Z&x'om in Church ^arterly
Review, cxvi, 1933, pp. 24 jyy. and below, p. 532.
® See the text of Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 16. On the spelling of the name
see Sir W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, vol. i, pt. n, p. 737-
The inscription {I.G.R.R. iv, 696) with a commentary is on pp. 722 sqq.
XIV, i] THE CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR 489
1883 Sir W. M. Ramsay found, three miles south of Hieropolis
in Phrygia, two pieces of the inscription itself, which therefore is
to be regarded as genuine and was probably the source round
which the hagiographer constructed his legend. It describes the
journey of Avircius to Rome in the West and Nisibis in the East,
being received everywhere and given a fish from the fountain and
a drink of ‘good’ (xprjcrTov) wine with bread. The inscription
Avircius set up in his lifetime at the age of 72, about a.d. 190.
Nearly all scholars are agreed that in this allusive language
Avircius indicates to his co-religionists that in all his travels he
had been received and admitted to the Eucharist. But the fact
that the expressions which he uses are so vague and figurative,
some persons even thinking he was a priest of Cybele, seems to go
with the declining influence of Anatolia upon Christian thought
in the periodh
Farther to the East, Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappa-
docia during forty years of the middle of the third century, was
one of the more prominent figures of his time. He was a friend of
Origen, whom he induced to pay him a visit in Cappadocia after
he left Alexandria. Presently he is prominent in the Council or
Synod at Antioch, which was concerned with the conditions on
which Christians who had recanted during persecution could be re-
admitted to the Church. In 25 6 he answered a letter from Cyprian
of Carthage on the re-baptism of heretics (see below, p. 541).
This controversy has a peculiar interest for the ecclesiastical
historian, as it reveals two great principles that had been growing
up in the Church. Heretics who had been baptized in the Name
of Jesus, who now wished to be reconciled to the Church, should
they be baptized afresh ? Yes, said Cyprian, and persuaded all his
eighty-seven suffragans to say the same. Dionysius of Alexandria®
agreed, and so did Firmilian. On the other side stood Stephen of
Rome. He had on his side two things — the ancient custom, and
therefore the authority, of the Roman Church, and the growing
belief in the mysterious efficacy of sacraments. In an age when the
baptism of infants was coming in, what was the good of it to in-
fants, if it had to be repeated If the child had died in the interval,
its state would be the same as if it had never been baptized at all.
It is to be remembered also that ‘Baptism’ and ‘Confirmation,’
i.e. reception into the fold of the Church and the gift of the Holy
Spirit, are both administered by Eastern Christians in the rite
known as baptism. Cyprian and Firmilian agreed that the heretics
1 But for the practice of the Montanists, see above, p. 458.
® Eusebius, Hist. EccL vii, 5 - ■
490 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
did not have the Holy Spirit; therefore, they maintained, their
baptism should be repeated. Years later , a compromise was
reached: valid baptism must be in the name of the Trinity, not in
the name of Jesus only ; and the orthodox Church repeated the
ceremony when heretics were admitted, not as a fresh baptism,
but as a precaution in case some defect had been used by the
heretical minister when the penitent was previously baptized^.
Firmilian mentions in the course of his argument that he had
known of a woman who had actually dared to consecrate the
Eucharist with a not unworthy invocation, and had baptized many
according to the legitimate .rite. How could such baptism be
accepted,? He evidently considered such an unheard-of mon-
strosity must prove his case.
No Council or Synod was held in this affair. It was otherwise in
the case of Paul of Samosata, in which Firmilian was also con-
cerned, This episode is interesting, in itself, for its political
accompaniments, and as a mark of the growing power of Rome.
In itself it is interesting, for Paul of Samosata held a view about the
nature of Jesus Christ and His relation to God, entirely alien from
that held by Origen and Origenists who interpreted the Incarna-
tion in terms of the Logos conceived of as a distinct Being or
Person alongside the Being or Person of God the Father. Paul
taught that the Logos (whom he seems to have identified with the
Holy Spirit) was not a distinct entity, but rather the reason in God
analogous to the reason in man. His doctrine of Jesus Christ
resembled that of the Roman ‘dynamistic Monarchian ' Artemas,
from whom indeed he was alleged to have derived it^. Jesus he
held was a real man, miraculously born indeed, and deemed
worthy to receive a fuller measure of the Divine Spirit than any
other man, but essentially human as we are by nature. This type
of Christology shocked the prevailing feeling of the age, and
^ Archbishop Benson’s remarks on this controversy in the Dictionary of
Christian Biography (art. Cyprianus) are worth quoting: ‘The unanimity
of such early councils and their erroneousness are a remarkable monition.
Not packed, not pressed; the question broad; no attack on an individual;
only a principle sought; the assembly representative; each bishop the elect of
his flock; and all “men of the world,” often christianized, generally ordained
late in life; converted against their interests by convictions formed in an age
of freest discussion; their Chief one in whom were rarely blended intel-
lectual and political ability, with holiness, sweetness and self-discipline. The
conclusion reached by such an assembly uncharitable, unscriptural, un-
catholic, and unanimous.’ Cf. C. Dyovouniotes in Church ^arterly Review,
cxvi, 1933, pp. 93-101.
® Eusebius, Hist. EccL vii, 30, 16,
XIV, i] PAUL OF SAMOSATA 491
induced Firmilian of Cappadocia and certain other bishops to
assemble two synods and possibly more in order to condemn Paul’s
opinions, and to depose him from the venerable see of Antioch to
which he had somehow attained. Unfortunately hardly a word of
Paul’s side has survived: it is only from his adversaries that we
hear of his dangerous opinions, his arrogant behaviour, and of the
scandal of the beautiful subintroductae whom he is alleged to
have maintained. He managed, it is true, to avoid condemnation
at the first synod in 264, but in 268~Firmiiian died, apparently
on his way to Antioch — Paul betrayed himself into a dispute with
Malchion, a presbyter of Antioch hostile to him, and the bishops,
all of them of Origen’s school, pronounced him a heretic to be
deposed.
It is instructive to observe that in condemning Paul the Council
condemned the use of the very word which in the next century was
to become the watchword of orthodoxy on the Person of the Son
of God: homoousios. It was natural that they should do so. The
Eastern Bishops present at the Council were as a whole Origenist,
and as disciples of Origen they held the Logos to be an ousia
distinct from, and subordinate to, the ousia of the Father. Paul’s
doctrine merged the Logos in the Godhead and the condemnation
of homoousios was no doubt intended to rule out this tendency. The
decision was to prove a cause of some embarrassment to the
champions of Nicene orthodoxy. The fact is that in the next
century the doctrinal issues had shifted. Danger then threatened
from an accentuation of the subordinationist element in Origen’s
theology. The Logos was left so far distinct from — nay inferior
to — ^the essence of the Godhead, that his true Divinity was im-
perilled or directly denied. Against such a tendency it seemed
necessary to assert what the Council of 268 had denied — the
homoousion of the Son with the Father. Neither in 268 nor in 325
had theologians hit upon the distinction in meaning between
ousia and hypostasis whereby the later orthodoxy sought to
satisfy the legitimate interests of both tendencies in theological
doctrine.
Paul’s deposition was not easily achieved. In 268 Roman writs
did not run in Antioch. Power was in the hands of Zenobia^,
and Paul refused to give up the Church buildings. But four years
later Aurelian had crushed Zenobia and on being petitioned
he] assigned ownership to those who could show that they were
in communion with the bishops of Rome and Italy. No doubt
in this Aurelian had in view the ‘restoring and cementing the
See above, p. 302. r > :
THE CHURCH IN THE EAST
492
[chap.
dependence of the provinces on the capital,’ to use the words of
Gibbon, but his action marks an advance in the prestige of the
Western church. The Western bishops prudently agreed with
the decision of Eastern brethren in the deposition of Paul of
Samosata from St Peter’s former see, and accepted the elevation
of Domnus, son of Demetrianus, Paul’s predecessor, to be bishop
of Antioch.
A word is due here on the slow but steady advance of an ascetic
ideal and the exaltation of virginity among Christians in the ante-
Nicene period before the conversion of the Empire. That this ideal
had limitations is sufficiently proved by the choice of Domnus,
just mentioned, to succeed his father Demetrianus, though there
is nothing to suggest that Demetrianus during his sacerdotal
career had lived with his wife. The exaltation of virginity is not a
vital constituent of Christianity, though the tendency does shew
itself here and there in the New Testament, e.g. i Cor. vii and
Apoc. xiv. 4, as well as Matt. xix. 12^. But that is explicable by
the early Christian idea that the world was just about to come to
an end, so that no man, believer or unbeliever, would ever have
any grandchildren.
In any case this tendency persisted, and the unmarried life, if
strictly continent, became the ideal. Tt was not in this world that
the primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves
either agreeable or useful^.’ The further discussion of the question
is a matter for ethics and philosophy. It is necessary to draw atten-
tion to it here, in order to render the organization of the early
orthodox Syriac-speaking Church and of the heretical Manichees
less extraordinary and fantastic.
11 . SYRIAC-SPEAKING CHRISTIANITY
Christianity east of the Roman Empire dates from about a.d. i 60—
170. The Christian Religion started in an Oriental land, and during
the period covered by the Book of Acts the Aramaic-speaking
community at Jerusalem may have seemed as important as the
little Greek-speaking communities founded by Paul in the mari-
timeorquasi-maritime towns of the Mediterranean. But the Jewish
War and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 broke up
Jewish Christianity for ever. Jewish Christians survived till the
fourth century, but in obscurity.
^ See above, p. 458.
^ Gibbon, ed. Bury, ii, p. 35. The final paragraphs about the virtues of
the Christians in Gibbon’s chapter xy (jh. pp. 34-38) deserve study-
XIV, Ii] SYRIAC CHRISTIANITY 493
Hence it came about that for eighty years — nearly three genera-
tions — ^from, approximately, 80 to 160, there were hardly any but
Greek-speaking Christians. At the end of that period are found
the first beginnings of Latin-speaking Christianity, and Syriac-
speaking Christianity began about that time also. Two traditions
of its first beginnings survive, neither entirely trustworthy, but by
combining them we may gain some idea of the course of events.
Epiphanius^ declares that Tatian, the disciple of Justin Martyr,
went back to his native Mesopotamia after Justin’s martyrdom
(perhaps a.d. i 65), adding that it was Tatian who composed the
Diatessaron. The native Syriac tradition is that Addai, one of the
seventy-two disciples of the Lord, was sent to Edessa, converted
the king, Abgar the Black, and brought in the use of the Dia~
tessaron. That this tradition places the conversion of Edessa far
too early is evident from other parts of the legend which make
Palut, ordained deacon by Addai, to be consecrated bishop by
Serapion bishop of Antioch (about 180), but the use of the
Diatessaron as a substitute for the Four Gospels is confirmed by
the practice of the earliest Syriac ecclesiastical writers. Eusebius'^
thought that Addai stood for Thaddaeus; a much more probable
conjecture is to identify Addai with Tatian, to regard them as the
names by which the same man was known to Greeks and Syriac-
speaking people respectively.
Edessa, called by Ae natives U rhai, the modern U rfa, was a town
refounded by Seleucus Nicator in northern Mesopotamia about
thirty miles north-west of Harran (Carrhae), and this in the time
of Tatian was the capital of an independent buifer-State (OsrhoSne)
between the Roman and the Parthian Empires. The State was taken
over by the Romans in 2 1 5, a few years before the collapse of
Parthia and the rise of the Sassanians, but when Christianity
reached it, it had a king and court who used the native dialect. This
dialect is commonly known as Syriac: it is akin to, but different
from, the Aramaic spoken in Palestine, that of Palmyra and that
spoken by Babylonian Jews and the Mandaeans.
The translation of the New Testament, or parts of it, into this
Semitic language is a very notable event. There were Egyptian
Christians in the second century, but Coptic translations of the
Bible were not made till the third In the fourth century, as we
learn from Eusebius’ account of the Martyrs of Palestine®, the
Scriptures in Palestine itself were read in Greek and then orally
translated into the native dialect. Of the first rendering of any
1 Haer. xlvi, i. _ ® Hist. Ecd. i, 13.
® I, I (in the Syriac version A).
494 the church IN THE EAST [chap.
part of the Bible into Latin there is no record: it seems to have
happened in the period 150— 170, when Latin-speaking Chris-
tianity began to be important. In any case Latin was the Imperial
language, and some sort of rendering of the authoritative Scrip-
tures into it could not be indefinitely delayed. What is certain is
that Latin and Syriac stood for a long while as the only languages
into which the Bible had been translated. There was a colony of
Jews at Edessa and the neighbouring city of Nisibis: the Old
Testament had already been translated by them into Syriac before
the days of Addai-Tatian. The Syriac Old Testament used by the
Christians is this Jewish translation, slightly revised.^ ^ ^
The Diatessaron mxy very well be regarded less as a last attempt
at Gospel-making than as the first of the Versions. The Four
Gospels had gradually become sacrosanct, at least at Rome, by
about A. D. 150 : at the same time. Latin-speaking Christians were
beginning to form an increasingly large element in the Church
there. Should the Gospels be translated for these.? On the one
hand, it might seem that translation might diminish the special
value of the inspired words, on the other, it was obvious that a
knowledge of the contents of the Gospel message was desirable
for Latin-speaking converts, if not a necessity. A way out seems
to have been found in the production of a Latin Compendium
drawn from the Canonical Four, which was called Diatessaron^
a musical term which indicated both the sources of the work and
the essential harmony of the sources.
In its original form the Diatessaron is no longer extant. But a
little before the year 546 Victor, bishop of Capua, happened to
find an anonymous Harmony of the Gospels, which he rightly
identified as akin to the Harmony of Tatian mentioned by
Eusebius in his Church History. Victor incorporated this Harmony
into a volume of the New Testament which he corrected with his
own hand^ ; he mentions in a preface that he had added an adapta-
tion of the system of parallel references known as the Eusebian
Canons, and it is probably through Victor that the wording of the
text has been assimilated to that of Jerome’s Vulgate. But the
harmonic arrangement is very well preserved^.
Certain medieval Harmonies in Dutch appear to be based
on an independent copy of the codex found by Victor of Capua.
In them and in the text of the Codex Fuldensis itself there are
1 Dated 21 April, a.d. 546,
^ The Codex Fuldensis (as it is called) found its way to Jarrow or Monk-
wearmouth, and was subsequently taken by St Boniface to Fulda in Ger-
many, where it is still treasured in the Catnedral.
XIV, n] TATIAN’S DUTESSJRON 495
surviving traces of the older pre-Vulgate text which characterized
the original compilation.
When Tatian, then, returned to Mesopotamia, where he was
known as Addai (p. 493), this Harmony was ready to his hand.
He prepared a version of it in his native Syriac, making such
changes and improvements as naturally characterize a second
edition^. The work itself was suppressed by authority in the fifth
century and no copy of the Syriac Diatessaron has survived, but
Ephraim Syrus (died a.d. 373) wrote a commentary on it which
is extant in an Armenian version, and an Arabic translation exists,
in which the wording of the text before translation into Arabic had
been assimilated to that of the Syriac Vulgate known as the
Peshitta. From these, and some minor authorities, the order of
the incidents can be securely made out, always with the same
result: Ephraim and the Arabic agree together against Victor of
Capua and the Dutch Harmonies, and practically in all cases the
Latin order is more primitive (and less satisfactory) than that of
the Syriac. The Syriac Diatessaron^ indeed, has all the character-
istics of a second and revised edition.
As mentioned above, the ‘historical’ work which embodies the
native tradition about Addai, the founder of Christianity in
Edessa, makes Palut his priest or ‘elder’ to have been ordained
bishop by Serapion about 180. ‘Addai,’ therefore, and his mis-
sion, cannot belong to apostolic times, but must be placed in the
1 [Professor Burkitt’s view, stated in the text, that the original Diatessaron
was a Latin composition, is not accepted by ail sdiolars. Since Professor
Burkitt wrote this chapter, the discovery at Doura of a tiny fragment of the
Diatessaron in Greek (describing the Burial of Christ) has established what
had hitherto been uncertain, that the Diatessaron existed in Greek. (See
Studies and Documents, III. A Greek Fragment of Tatian’ 5 Diatessaron from
Doura. Edited by C. H. Kraeling, 1935.) It is also established that this
Greek Diatessaron was in use at least as early as the first half of the third
century — probably about 222. Further, it is hard to resist Dr Kraeling’s
argument Qb. pp. 15 sqq.) that the Greek should be regarded as the original
of the Syriac and not •uice versa. A similar type of argument to that advanced
by Dr Kraeling against the conjecture that the Syriac is prior to the Greek,
would militate against the conjecture that the Greek is based upon a Latin
original. The textual problems call for further investigation in the light of
this new discovery, but it seems highly probable that the Greek Diatessaron
is Tatian’s original Diatessaron, and that the versions, Latin and Syriac,
depend ultimately upon the Greek. For Professor Burkitt’s view of the new
discovery and its bearing upon his theory of an original Latin Diatessaron
reference should be made to an article published posthumously in Joum.
Tkeol. Stud. XXXVI, 1935, pp. 255 sqq., ‘The Doura Fragment of Tatian.’
J.M.C.] ,
^96 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
last third of the second century. That is the decisive reason for
rejecting the chronology assumed in the work of Meshiha-zeka,
a chronicler of the early sixth century, who compiled a bio-
graphical list of the bishops of Adiabene from the earliest times.
The names of these bishops may be genuine — the first was
PeHda— but the lengths of their episcopates and the serious gaps
between them seem designed to bring up the establishment of the
mission into early post-apostolic times, i.e. into the reputed date
of Addai himself. That a Syriac-speaking Christianity was intro-
duced into Adiabene and that there were bishops in Arbela before
the collapse of the Parthian Empire (a.d. 226) may be granted, but
it is all subsequent to the conversion of the king of Edessa^.
No connected account of the early history of Eastern Chris-
tianity was written down. All that can be done is to emphasize
what seem to be outstanding events. First of all comes the
naturalization of Christianity in a Syriac-speaking land. Of the
numbers of the converts we know nothing, but an accidentally
preserved notice of a flood at Edessa in a.d. 201 mentions ‘the
temple of the Christians’ as an important building. More signi-
ficant is the fact of the conversion of the celebrated Bardaisan.
Bar Daisan (in Greek, Bardesanes) was born in a.d. 154. He was
a friend of the king of Osrhoene, Abgar IX, and was known
in his day as the Aramaean Philosopher. He is said to have been
educated by a heathen priest at Hierapolis (Mabbog) and to have
become a Christian about 180. His works have mostly perished,
for he came to be regarded as a heretic, but a Dialogue on Fate by
his disciple Philip survives, in which Bardaisan is the chief
speaker, from which many of his opinions can be gathered. This
dialogue gives an attractive picture of him, answering at length the
difficulties of his followers and showing a wide acquaintance with
many departments of knowledge.
It was particularly as an astronomer and an astrologer that
Bardaisan was famous. He was the author of a grandiose system
of the universe, which is both striking in itself and further im-
portant as the basis on which Mani afterwards erected his con-
struction (p. 5 1 o). To Bardaisan ‘ God ’ is not the Creator and
1 Further light on the character of Syrian Christianity is afforded by the
Christian church discovered at Doura. Built in a.d. 232 to succeed a place
of worship in a private house, it has particular importance from its extensive
mural paintings (Volume of Plates v, 166), which indicate a relation of
parenthood to Western religious art. Further, the discovery at Doura of the
fragment of Tatian’s (See above) reveals the dependence of local
■ piety on that of Edessa.
XIV, Ii] BARDAISAN 497
Source of the stuff of which the Universe is made, but the
Arranger of it into an ordered Cosmos. God is not the sole Ithya^
the sole self-existent Being or Entity; besides God there are the
four pure substances of Light, Wind, Fire and Water, and the
foul Dark substance. All these are contained in Space, which
appears to be the Seventh EntityL
Originally these Entities were in a happy state of equilibrium:
then something occurred whereby they were hurled together and
mixed, but God sent His Word and cut off the Dark from contact
with the pure substances, and ‘ from that mixture which came into
being from the pure substances and the Dark, their enemy, He
constituted this World and set it in the midst, that no further
mixture might be made from them and that which had been mixed
already, which (mixture) now is being refined by conception and
birth until the process is complete^.’ What this doctrine asserts, is
that things were originally in equilibrium, that something then
occurred to disturb this equilibrium, whereby general disaster was
threatened, but that God came to the rescue and confined within
certain limits the damage done and provided for its eventual
reparation.
This corresponds in a sense to the ordinary Christian doctrine
of the ‘Fall,’ but it differs from it inasmuch as it puts the Fall
before the construction of our World — nay more, it makes the
Fall to be the cause of this World, not a regrettable incident
occurring after this World had been made. In this the Bardcs-
anian doctrine agrees with Manichaeism^: in fact, the religion of
Mani becomes more comprehensible if the ideas of Bardaisan are
recognized as one of its formative elements.
The World and its inhabitants having been the result of a pre-
mundane accident, it is not surprising that Bardaisan did not be-
lieve in the resurrection of the body. Man, according to Bardaisan,
is naturally mortal; it was Abel, not Adam, who died first. Our
Lord only raises Souls: the effect of Adam’s sin was to prevent
Souls after death from what Bardaisan called ‘crossing over,’
while on the other hand the Life or Salvation brought by our Lord
was that He enabled Souls to cross over into the Kingdom, or as
Bardaisan also called it ‘the Bridal-Chamber of Light.’ The Body,
he said, is incapable of thought, while the Soul is merely ignorant :
^ For the cosmogony of Bardaisan, see C. W. Mitchell, Ephraim's Prose
Refutations, ii, pp. cxxii sqq . : the leading text is Moses bar Kepha (died 903),
given in F. Nau, Bardesanes {Patrologia Syriaca I, ii, pp- 5 ’' 3 ~ 5 i 5 )-
® MosesbarKephainNaujOp. oV. p. 514-
® See below, p. 510.
498 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
God places in the Soul the Leaven, i.e. the divine faculty of
Reason, where it works by its inherent energy till the whole Soul
becomes rational and therefore divine. This Reason he regards as
a ‘stranger’ in the Soul, i,e. it is a gift from God, not a mere
natural development.
Did Bardaisan know Greek? Or rather, seeing that Bardaisan
lived part of his life at the court of Edessa and therefore probably
could speak Greek, had he a first-hand knowledge of Greek litera-
ture and philosophy ? It is difficult to say for certain, but it would
seem that he had little or no first-hand knowledge of Greek
writings, and that a good deal of the vaguely Hellenic air of the
‘ Bardaisanian ’ theories opposed by Ephraim, from whom we get
most of our knowledge of them, is due to Harmonius, the son of
Bardaisan, who is said by Theodoret^ to have studied at Athens
and become familiar with the language and philosophy of Greece.
Harmonius adhered to his father’s doctrines, and set them forth
in ‘Hymns’; the tradition runs that Ephraim took the metres
which Harmonius is said to have introduced into Syriac literature,
and turned them into vehicles for orthodox teaching.
That Bardaisan himself was a poet, and in particular that he
wrote the splendid poem in the Acts of Thomas known as ‘The
Hymn of the Soul’ is more than doubtful. In all that Ephraim
quotes from Bardaisan there is a complete absence of the mythic
and poetical element. In Ephraim’s Refutations the Aramaean
Philosopher appears as a matter-of-fact man of science, a teacher
of positive doctrine about the physical constitution of the world in
which we live. To us, no doubt, it is science falsely so called,
speculations as groundless as his derivations of the names of some
of the ancient months from the Syriac of his day. But such as it is,
it is positive doctrine about matter and sense-perception; there is
no parabolic setting-forth of the meaning of human life or the ways
of Divine redemption. Moreover, the attitude of Bardaisan to-
wards life is different from that characteristic of the Acts of Thomas^
including the great Hymn. This, like Syriac ecclesiastical writing
generally, sets forth an ascetic philosophy of life, and there is
nothing ascetic in the attitude of Bardaisan. It is true that he re-
garded man as naturally mortal, and held that only the immortal
soul is redeemed by Christ. But he did not reject marriage, as the
Acts of Thomas does. In the Hymn itself there is nothing about
marriage or generation, but the food and dress of ‘Egypt’ are
regarded as unclean, and not merely as things temporary and
perishable.
^ Mitchell, op. cit. p. cxxv.
® Haer. Fab. i, 22.
XIV. II] SYRIAC ASCETICISM 499
We may fairly regard Bardaisan as a native product of Syriac-
speaking Christianity, but the times were not propitious for free
growth and development. A little before a . d . 200 may be placed
the ordination of Palut the disciple of Addai by Serapion of
Antioch : there can be little doubt that this tradition signifies the
inGorporation of the mission of Tatian into the episcopal system
of the Catholic Church. Probably also it was marked by the
translation of the Four Gospels into Syriac, though the Diatessaron
was still generally used for a couple of centuries.
In one important respect the custom of the Syriac-speaking
Church retained till the fourth century the ascetic ideas of its
founder. The heresy of which Tatian is accused is that of the
Encratites, those who regarded the married state as incompatible
with the Christian life. Except in the views of Bardaisan, just
mentioned, this belief was dominant in the Syriac-speaking
Church. The words ‘holy’ and ‘continent’ are synony-
mous. It must not be supposed that these Christians were a body
of ‘race-suicides.’ Where they differed from the Christian of to-
day was in their theory of the Sacraments. Aphraates, writing in
337, appears to divide Christians into the ‘Sons of the Covenant’
(JBnai Toyama) and the Penitents. The Penitent is the general ad-
herent, who has as yet not volunteered for the sacramental life;
the son (or daughter) of the Covenant is the baptized Christian,
who is admitted to partake of the Eucharist. Those who volunteer
for baptism are to be warned — ‘He whose heart is set to the state
of matrimony, let him marry before baptism, lest he fall in the
spiritual contest and be killed He that hath not offered himself
and hath not yet put on his armour, if he turn back he is not
blamed^.’ In other words, the average Christian of this com-
munity looked forward to becoming a full Church member only
at a somewhat advanced age, and as a prelude to retiring morally
and physically from the life of this world. In Aphraates, baptism
is not the common seal of every Christian’s faith, but a privilege
reserved for celibates, or at least for those who intend to live a
celibate life for the future^. We meet with a similar organization
among the Marcionites and the Manichees.
The traditions current at Edessa contain memories of two
persecutions, the martyrdom of Sharbil under Decius and of ‘the
Confessors of Edessa’ under Diocletian. The martyrdom of
Sharbil, high-priest of Bel and Nebo, though preserved in very
1 Aphraates, Horn, vii, 20 (Wright, p. 147 Parisot, col. 345).
® See Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity^ pp. 125-142, where there is a
full discussion.
Soo THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
ancient manuscripts, is almost wholly unhistorical. The date of
Sharbil’s martyrdom is put atA.D. 105^, and the details of his con-
version by Barsamya the bishop are fanciful in the extreme. What
is important is that the worship of Edessa is still represented as
that of Bel and Nebo, he. the Planets, as in Acts of Addai\ \n
the Acts which deal with the Diocletianic persecution, on the other
hand, the official worship is of the Emperors and of ‘this Zeus.’
The inference to be drawn is that Christianity had in the interval
ousted the old native cults, and that what was put before the
people of Edessa in the Diocletianic persecution was a foreign
official worship ordered by the Imperial authority.
The dates of martyrdom of the Confessors are, for Shmona and
Guria, Tuesday 15 Nov. a.d. 309, and for Habbib the Deacon,
Saturday 2 Sept. a.d. 310^. The three Confessors were ap-
parently the only victims in Edessa of the great persecution,
not, it would seem, because the Christians of Edessa and neigh-
bouring towns were few, but for the opposite reason that the
Christians were very numerous, and the government was un-
willing to proceed to extremities. In Nicomedia, where Diocletian
had his court, the persecution broke out in 303® and it rapidly
spread to Palestine, but it was six years before anyone was executed
in Edessa.
In A.D. 312-13 Konna, bishop of Edessa, began to build the
great church which was finished by his successor Sha'ad. It is
noteworthy that Konna escaped the persecution. Nothing more
is known of him, but he and Sha'ad and their successor Aitilaha
{i.e. ‘Theodore’) were honourably commemorated on Sept. 3.
From Konna onwards the dates of the bishops of Edessa are
duly given In the Chronicle of Edessa, a work which goes down to
A.D. 540, but which was evidently compiled from contemporary
official records. We learn that the city remained orthodox during
the reigns of Arian Emperors, and finally under Rabbula, bishop
from 4 1 1 to 43 5, old heretics, such as the Marcionites and the
disciples of Bardaisan, were reconciled to the Church. The epi-
scopate of Rabbula is the central point in the history of Syriac-
speaking Christendom, the natural division between the ancient
and medieval world. It will, therefore, be convenient to conclude
this survey of the early period by an account of the two great
writers, Aphraates and Ephraim, who belong to the age before
Rabbula, and to indicate the main stages in the history of the New
Testament in Syriac.
1 416 Sel. Era. ^ See Burkitt, Euphemia and the Goth, p. 30.
® For this persecution in general see below, pp. 664 sqq.
XIV, ri] APHRAATES 501
Aphraates (in Syriac Aphrahaf) was the Principal — it is almost
too early to call him the Abbot — of the Convent of Mar Mattai
(i.e. St Matthew) near the modern Mosul. Between 337 and 345
he wrote a series of Discourses on the Faith in answer to an en-
quirer. The Discourses are twenty-two in number, the first words
beginning with the successive letters of the Semitic alphabet, to-
gether with a final Discourse ‘On the Cluster’ or the descent of
our Lord from Adam and Abraham, giving a kind of general view
of religious history. The alphabetical arrangement of the Dis-
courses was a method of preserving their proper order; what we
have is no miscellaneous bundle of sermons, but an ordered
account of the Christian Religion as understood by ‘the Persian
Sage,’ as Aphraates was called.
The result is singularly different from the contemporary theo-
logy of the Greeks, both Athanasian and Arian. Aphraates is not
unorthodox, but his mind moved along other channels than those
of the Greeks. For instance, he treats the Holy Spirit as, at least
grammatically, feminine. ‘ What father and mother doth he for-
sake that taketh a wife ? This is the meaning: that when a man not
yet hath taken a wife, he loveth and honoureth God his Father,
and the Holy Spirit his Mother, and he hath no other love. But
when a man taketh a wife he forsaketh his Father and his Mother,
those namely that are signified above, and his mind is united with
this world^.’ As we see from this quotation, the Christian com-
munity that Aphraates has in mind is unmarried, and he seems to
know no other. His name for them is Sons and Daughters of the
Covenant^, a word which in later days became one of the many
Syriac terms for monk or kanonikos, but with Aphraates is still the
word for a baptized Christian.
At a later period the theory of the Christian life changed. In
the Syriac-speaking Church, especially from the time that Chris-
tianity became the State religion of the Roman Empire, the mass
of the adherents wished to make the most of both worlds. They
wished to obtain the benefits of baptism all their lives, and had
also their young children baptized in infancy. Thus a Christian
community came into being, of which the greater number were
actually baptized, though only a minority of them were specially
addicted to religion. In this way the Bnai Kyama became a mon-
astic order in the Society, instead of being the Society itself.
Ephraim, in Syriac Aphrem, often called ‘Ephrem Syrus,’ is the
: y / / : i; (if -v A
^ For another view of the Sons of the Covenant, see R. H. Connolly in
Joum. Theol. Stud, xxxvi, 1935, p. 234^
502 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
most widely famous of Syriac writers. His earlier life was spent
at Nisibisj but after that town was abandoned to the Persians by
Jovian in 363 he migrated to Edessa, and died there in 373. Vast
quantities of extant literature are ascribed to him, and though
much is spurious the genuine remainder is very voluminous^.
Much of it is ‘poetry,’ i.e. works written in lines of so many
syllables. Syriac poetry is even easier to write than ‘blank verse’
in English, for only the number of syllables need be counted;
there is no accent, no quantity, no rhyme. And as Ephraim is
extraordinarily prolix, and as when the thought is unravelled it is
mostly commonplace, his poems make very heavy reading for us
moderns. His prose is better, and in the treatises edited from a
very illegible palimpsest from the Nitrian collection in Egypt®
he shows real critical insight. At least, his theory that the
Manichaean system is best explained as an adaptation of those of
Bardaisan and of Marcion has much to recommend it. It is a pity
that Ephraim’s Commentary on the Diatessaron is extant only
in an Armenian translation.
Rabbula, bishop of Edessa from 41 1, made it one of his first
cares to undertake an authoritative revision of the New Testament
in Syriac from the Greek, ‘because of its variations exactly as it
was®.’ This survives in many manuscripts, some of them as old as
the fifth century, and is known as the Peshitta, /.<?. the simple
(version), so called to distinguish it from later learned translations
which were embellished with critical marks. The Peshitta is used
in the services of all existing sects of the Syriac-speaking Church,
and the manuscripts all agree most wonderfully in text, so that
there are hardly any variations. The New Testament books in-
clude the Four Gospels, Acts, the Pauline Epistles (including
Hebrews), with James, i Peter and i John. The four minor
General Epistles and the Apocalypse are not included. So far as
we know, this was the first time any of the General Epistles had
been translated into Syriac. Neither in Aphraates nor in the
genuine works of Ephraim is there a single clear reference to any
of the General Epistles, and the Doctrine of Addai says ‘The Law
and the Prophets and the Gospel. . .and the Epistles of Paul. . .
and the Acts. . . : these books read ye in the Church of God and
with these read not others.’
1 See the list of genuine works in Burkitt, S. Ephrainls Rotations from
the Gospel, p. 24 sq.
2 By the late C. W. Mitchell, Brit. Mus. add, 14623, of the fifth or
sixth century.
® Overbeck, Ephraemi Syri, etc., p, 172.
XIV, Ii] EPHRAIM AND RABBULA 503
We need not ascribe to Rabbula an anachronistic interest in
textual criticism. W’^hat he was interested in was to assimilate his
Church to that of the Empire by substituting the ‘Separate’ Four
Gospels for the, Diatessaron. The Four were called in Syriac the
Separated Gospel {Evangelion da-Mepharshe) as distinguished
from the Diatessaron which was also called the ‘Mixed’ Gospel
{Evangelion da-Mehalte). He was eminently successful; so much
so, that no copy of the Diatessaron in Syriac is extant. But two
copies of the pre-Rabbulan Syriac text of the ‘Separate’ Four Gos-
pels have survived, known as the Sinai Palimpsest (Syr. S) and the
Guretonian MS. in the British Museum (Syr. C). Both are ex-
tremely ancient: Syr. <? belongs almost certainly to the fourth
century, and Syr. C can be very little later. Of C a little less than
half is preserved; S has lost only 17 leaves out of 159, but it is a
palimpsest and some words and lines are here and there illegible^.
iS" and C dift'er in text from each other as well as from the
Peshitta, but they more often agree in characteristic readings, so
that it is possible to gain a fair idea of their original. We may
reasonably connect this with the tradition of the ordination of
Palut by Serapion of Antioch, i.e. a little before a.d. 200 (p. 493).
The Diatessaron was a whole generation earlier, and till the time
of Rabbula (41 1-435) separate Four never were much used
in the Syriac-speaking Church. There are no marks of liturgical
use either in S or in C, and their text has many harmonistic read-
ings, which doubtless show the influence of the then better known
text of Tatian’s Harmony. Apart from this, this Old Syriac ver-
sion (so called to distinguish it from Rabbula’s revision) is a very
valuable textual witness, having curious and still unexplained
affinities with the text of Alexandria (generally considered by
modern critical scholars to be the purest), with the Old Latin
texts, and also with the texts now associated with Caesarea.
No manuscript of the Old Syriac except the Gospels has sur-
vived, but Commentaries or paraphrases of Ephraim on the
Pauline Epistles and the Acts are extant in Armenian translations,
which give some idea of what the text must have been. Hebrews
^ Syr. C is called from Canon William Cureton, who discovered it
among the MSS. which reached the British Museum from the Nitrian
Library in 1842: he edited the fragment in 1858. Syr. S was discovered in
the Convent on Mount Sinai by Mrs Lewis of Cambridge in 1892: the text
was first published in 1 894. Justinian’s Convent on Mount Sinai is the same
place where the famous ‘Sinai Codex’ (ji{) of the Greek Bible came from,
but the Syriac MS. of the Gospels had been turned into a palimpsest some-
where in the district of Antioch in a.d. 778, and doubtless reached Sinai as
a refugee with other Syriac books containing Georgian writing.
504 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
is there received but not Philemon, the number of Pauline letters
being kept up by an apocryphal Third Epistle to the Corinthians,
actually quoted in the ancient (but spurious) Acts of SharbiP.
MANI AND THE MANICHEES
The end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century saw
not only the great and open struggle between the Christian Church
and the Roman Empire, it saw also the beginning of the struggle
between the Church and the strangest of all Christian heresies.
The fight went on all through the fourth century, and it was not
till the middle of the following century that Manichaeism,
called by one of its earliest opponents, Alexander of Lycopolis in
Egypt, ‘the New Christianity,’ was definitely worsted. For nine
years, from 373-382, Augustine was a Manichee, and that period
may be regarded as the high-water mark of the Manichaean
religion in the Roman Empire. In the East it survived for a long
time, and did not finally disappear till the age of Zenghis Khan.
It was on Sunday, 20 March a.d. 242 that the preaching of
Manichaeism first began^. On that day a young man called
Mani began to announce at Seleuceia-Ctesiphon the capital of
the new Empire of the Sassanians, and under the patronage of
the king Shapur I, the new religion of which he was the prophet.
Mani was executed by the order of another Sassanian monarch a
little more than thirty years later (p. 5 1 3), but by the time of his
death his religion had taken root all over the East, and in the suc-
ceeding century it had spread throughout the Roman Empire.
A few years ago our knowledge of Manichaeism was very
scanty. Besides the writings of Augustine in Latin and other
controversial writings in Greek we had an elaborate account of it
in Arabic®. In 1912 and 1921 were published C. W. Mitchell’s
Refutations of Ephraim : Ephraim died only a hundred years after
Mani and wrote in Syriac, the language in which Mani composed
most of his works. More sensational than Mr Mitchell’s de-
cipherments have been the discoveries of Manichaean documents
in Central Asia. Three or four scientific expeditions made in the
early years of this century to Chinese Turkestan, north of Tibet,
in the now desolate region north and south of Lop-Nor (see
Map 7), brought to light thousands of written fragments, some
hundreds of which were from Manichaean manuscripts. Un-
^ W. Cureton, Andent Syriac Documents, p. 56.
^ Before this, according to the Kephalaia 15, 24 sqq. (Schmidt-Polotsky,
Mani-Fund, p. 47), Mani had gone on a voyage to India and preached there.
* I.e. in the Eiljrist: see G. Fiugel, Mam, 1862.
XIV, m] THE DOCUMENTS OF MANI 50S
fortunately they are all fragments, bits of torn books and rolls,
but they are at least the writings of Manichees, not mere refuta-
tions. Some are in a sort of Persian, more are in a Turkish dialect,
and it should be added that from the same region comes an
account of the Manichaean religion written in Chinese. As recently
as 1931 the yet more surprising discovery of a small Manichaean
Library has been made in Egypt, from near Lycopolis, consisting
of about half-a-dozen volumes in Coptic, containing hymns,
letters, some historical accounts of the tragic deaths of Mani and
his successor Sisinnius, and a lengthy work called the Chapters
or First Principles (Ke^aXata). Unfortunately the volumes are
badly preserved: the papyrus leaves are stuck together, and the
process of restoration, which is necessarily slow, has to precede
decipherment and publication.
All our documents, however, tell very much the same story,
they all give very much the same picture of the religion of the
Manichees. We begin, as the Manichees themselves did, by the
Two Principles and the Three Moments. The Two Principles, or
Roots, are the Light and the Dark. The contrast between the
Light and the Dark is the fundamental distinction for Manichee
thought, more fundamental than that between Good and Bad, or
God and Man. The Three Moments are the Past, the Present,
and the Future. Light and Dark are two absolutely different
eternal Existences. In the beginning they were separate, as they
should be. But in the Past the Dark made an incursion on the
Light and some of the Light became mingled with the Dark, as
it is still in the Present, in this world around us; nevertheless a
means of refining this Light from the Dark has been called into
being, and of pi'otecting the whole realm of Light from any
further invasion, so that in the Future Light and Dark will be
happily separated.
Light and Dark are the proper designations of the two Prin-
ciples, but to Mani with the idea of Light was conjoined every-
thing that was orderly, peaceful, intelligent, clear, while with that
of Dark was conjoined everything that was anarchic, turbulent,
material, muddy. The usual Manichaean presentation of the pri-
mordial condition of Light and Dark is that of two contiguous
realms or states, existing side by side from all eternity without
any commixture. Opposite the realm of the Light, in which dwelt
the Father of Greatness, was the realm of the Dark, a region of
suffocating smoke, of destructive fire, of scorching wind, of
poisonous water, in a word, of ‘darkness that might be felt’; for
the Dark to Mani, as to Bardaisan, was not ‘privation mere of
5o6 the church in the EAST [chap.
light and absent day,’ but a substantial entity. The denizens of
this pestiferous realm suited its character : Mani represents them
as groping about in aimless anarchy. They and their abode were
pictured as in everyway odious: the horrible Dark is peopled
with a horrible race appropriate in character and habits to the
place they live in. But in all this there is nothing evil. Evil began
when the Dark invaded the Light.
Mani could not explain how this first disturbance of the eternal
order took place, any more than Bardaisan could. He seems to
have said that somehow the Dark smelt and perceived that there
was ‘something pleasant’ beyond his region. It cannot well be
doubted that Mani’s point is that the beginning of evil is un-
regulated desire. But we must not regard Mani’s cosmogony as a
mere allegory: fantastic as his Gods and Angels may be, it is clear
that he and his disciples did regard them as real. The modern
investigator has to be clear on both sides: to be fair to the religion
of the Manichees we need to remember that the fantastic myths
which Mani taught correspond to a serious view of the strange
mixture of good and bad which we feel within ourselves and see in
other human beings; and on the other hand as historians we must
not treat as allegories the tales of the Primal Man and the rest of
the Manichaean mythology because to us, with our modern con-
ceptions of the material universe, the tales sound silly and bizarre.
The tale of the Primal Man is fundamental to Manichaeism.
He was called into being to repel the invasion of the Light by the
Dark, and was clothed or armed with the Five bright Elements,
with Light, Wind, Fire, Water and Air (as distinct from ‘Wind’).
But the result was disaster. The Primal Man was left lying un-
conscious on the field, and the Five Elements were swallowed up
by the Dark. This combat corresponds to the Fall in Catholic
doctrine, but, as has been said above (p. 497), it is still nearer to the
doctrine of Bardaisan, in that it makes the Fall to be the immediate
cause of the world in which we live.
The Primal Man recovered from his swoon and entreated the
Father of Greatness for help, so a fresh evocation of Light powers
came into being. One of these, the Friend of the Light, called to
the Primal Man, and the Primal Man had power to answer him^.
The Powers of Darkness were definitely mastered and their
invasion of the Light was arrested. But victory is one thing and
^ This Answer and the corresponding Call were hypostasized by the
Manichees: they seem to correspond to the Call of the Missionary and the
Avourable Answer it is able to bring forth from the Soul, even when enmeshed
in material surroundings.
XIV, III] MANFS COSMOGONY 507
reparations another. The dark Archons had absorbed, almost
digested, the Five Bright elements, and the Realm of Light would
be for ever poorer if these were not recovered. The problem was
not only to turn the proper region of Darkness into a prison by
encircling it with an impenetrable wall, but also to extract the
absorbed Light from the Archons. According to Mani our world
is the result of that process.
First of all, a great deal of the Light-substance was immediately
disgorged, and out of this the two pure Luminaries, Sun and
Moon, were made. But a great deal remained in the very frames
of the Archons, so the Primal Man ‘ flayed them, and made this
sky from their skins, and out of their excrement he compacted the
earth, and out of their bones he moulded and piled up the
mountains,’ so that ‘in rain and dew the pure Elements yet re-
maining in them might be squeezed out.’ Thus to Mani our earth
with the visible heavens above us is formed of the dismembered
parts of the evil demons of Darkness. It is held together and
guarded by five Beings, especially evoked for the purpose by the
Light: these are the Splenditenens, who holds the world suspended
like a chandelier; the ‘King of Honour,’ whose rays collect the
fragments of emitted light; the ‘Adamas,’ with shield and spear
driving off any rescue-party of the demons of the Dark; the ‘King
of Glory,’ who rotates the heavenly spheres that surround the
world; and the gigantic ‘Atlas,’ on whose shoulders the whole
mass is supported.
Meanwhile the Archons, though fettered and dismembered,
produced not only plants and animals but also a being made in the
image of the Divine Messenger of the Light that had appeared to
them. This was Adam, truly a microcosm, the image of the world,
of God and matter, of Light and Dark. To him, as he lay inert on
the ground, appeared Jesus the Ziwana — exactly what this epithet
means is doubtful, but in any case it denotes a heavenly Being —
who roused him from his slumber and made him realise his true
nature. ‘Jesus,’ says Mani^, ‘made him stand upright and taste
of the Tree of Life. . .when he said “Woe, woe, to the creator of
my body ! Woe to him who has bound my soul to it and to the
rebels who enslaved me!’” As Cumont remarks®, by making
Adam taste of the tree of knowledge Jesus, and not the Tempter,
revealed to him the extent of his misery. But man will know
henceforth the way of enfranchisement. By continence and re-
nunciation he must set free little by little the Divine Substance
1 Theodore bar Konai ap. Pognon, Inscr. mandaites, p. 193.
® La Cosmogonie MantchSenne, p. 49..
^ THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
within him, thereby joining in the great work of distillation with
which God is occupied in the universe. If only Adam had perse-
vered all would have been well, according to the Manichees, but
he forgot and knew Eve, an inferior being, formed by the Archons
to entice him. So Seth was born, and in him and us, his descen-
dants, the particles of the Light are still imprisoned.
This is the Manichaean teaching about the Past. In the Present
the Powers of Light have sent Prophets — Mani names Buddha
and Zoroaster— but till Mani himself appeared the only one that
mattered was, to use Mani’s own phrase, ‘Jesus who appeared in
Judaea.’
Jesus in Mani’s system occupies a peculiar position, which sug-
gests that Manichaeism must be classed as an aberrant form of
Christianity rather than as an independent religion. He was the
last of the Prophets before Mani, and Mani regarded himself as
the apostle of Jesus, beginning all his letters with ‘ Mani, apostle
of Jesus Christ.’ So Augustine had told us, and it is now con-
firmed by a fragment from Turfan and from the finds in Egypt.
The ‘Jesus’ revered by Mani has, it is true, a different nature
from the Jesus Christ of orthodox theology, and also from the
Jesus of the Four Gospels. But Mani does mean the same ‘Jesus
who appeared in Judaea,’ and his followers, as the books of Mani-
chaean hymns testify, revered him along with Mani himself. It
was Jesus who, when sent on his message of salvation, had con-
trived the vast mechanism, which takes up the souls of men and
the light-particles of their bodies to the Moon when they die,
which thus waxes for fifteen days, and when the souls have been
purged (by the Sun, apparently) they are emptied out from the
Moon, which then wanes for fifteen days. The souls are gathered
into the ‘ Column of Glory,’ no doubt meaning the Milky Way,
till at last the ‘Perfect Man^’ is reconstructed.
In accordance with the Gospel^ human history will end with
the second coming of Jesus, who will judge all men by their treat-
ment of the Faithful — i.e. the Manichaean Elect. This piece of
the early Christian Hope was attested by a fragment found at
Turfan, and now it is found to be the very core of the first of the
‘Homilies’ in Coptic (called The Discourse of the Great hFar),
published in 1934®.
Thus according to Manichaean belief the particles of the Light,
still enmeshed in this dirty world, are being gradually distilled out
^ See Eph. iv, 13. ^ See especially Mt. xxv, 31—46.
® By H. J. Polotsky, Manichatsche Handschriften der SammlungA. Chester
Beatty, I. Manichatsche Homilien.
XIV, III] MANI AND JESUS 509
of it. In the end nothing will be left but what is, literally, dust and
ashes. Even this will be consumed in a great bonfire which is to
last 1468 years, after which it will sink down into the Dark by its
own weight, while all the heavenly material will have been refined
out of it and taken to the realm of Light where it belongs. The
Smudge— z.ij. this world, in the Manichaean view — ^will have been
completely erased. That is their hope for the Future. It is a
striking instance of the definiteness of Manichaean doctrine, that
this curious period for the duration of the Great Eire, viz. 1468
years, the origin of which has not been explained, has been found
in the Turfan documents, though otherwise it was only known
from the Arabic
The r6le of Jesus in Manichaeism deserves a paragraph.
Before the discoveries at Turfan the general tendency had been
to emphasize the Oriental element in Mani’s system and to regard
the Christian element, then known most from Augustine, as due
mainly to the adoption of a Christian dress by Manichaeism in
the West. The new discoveries have changed all that: they prove
that the Christian element, though heretical, is fundamental to
Manichaeism, and that Mani, who came from the land of
Babylon and had travelled to India, drew most of his inspiration
from the Christianity of Marcion and of Bardaisan.
A first difficulty in comparing Christianity with the Manichee
Religion lies in a difference between their fundamental concep-
tions. Orthodox Christianity more or less starts with the religion
of Judaism, the religion of the Old Testament. The primal anti-
thesis is between ‘God’ and ‘His Creatures,’ of which the race of
Men is the noblest species. The main question in Western Christo-
logy was whether, and to what extent, ‘Jesus who appeared in
Judaea’ was to be reckoned as belonging to ‘God’ or to ‘the
Creatures.’ But to Mani the ultimate antithesis was not between
God and Man, but between Light and Dark. A Man was not a
unit, but a particle of Light enclosed in an alien and irredeemable
envelope: there is no hope for a Man as such. The hope is that his
Light-particles, not his whole personality, may escape at death
from the dark prison-house of the body. And ‘ God ’ also belongs
to a conception quite different from the personal, transcendent,
Yahweh of the Old Testament. As used by the Manichees ‘God’
seems to be a name for anything wholly composed of and belong-
ing to the Light-substance. The ‘Primal Man,’ the ‘Messenger,’
and others of the heavenly hierarchy, are little more than mani-
festations of the energy of the Light. They are not even, properly
1 Fliigel, op. ck. p. 90. j
510 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
speaking, eternal, for they seem to come into existence to meet a
need, as occasion arises.
With this view of God and Man, it is no wonder that Mani
thought of Jesus as human only in appearance. But Jesus occu-
pies a peculiar position also in the hierarchy of Light. Full as our
accounts are of the Manichee cosmogony, no tale of theirs pur-
ports to give the story of how he was ‘ evoked ’ or called into being.
Alone among the heavenly denizens He has a personal name, is in
fact a person, as Buddha is, or Hermes, or Mani himself. No
doubt this is because Jesus, whatever Mani may have thought
about Him, is ultimately a certain Person ‘who appeared in
Judaea’ a little more than two hundred years before Mani began
to preach.
It has been indicated above that many of the outstanding prin-
ciples of Manichaeism are far more natural results of tendencies
in the Christianity of the third century and of Mesopotamia than
of its modern development. The Manichaean idea of this world as
the result of an original catastrophe, so that ‘the Fall’ comes be-
fore ‘this world’ exists and is indeed the cause of its existence, is
derived from Bardaisan, the Aramaean Christian philosopher of
Edessa^. The Manichaean view of Jesus is doubtless akin to that
of Marcion. The Manichaean church, which they themselves
called Ecclesia, was also organized like the Marcionites ; as was also
that of the early Syriac church of the Euphrates Valley, otherwise
orthodox®. Moreover the tendency towards Asceticism, as re-
marked above®, was characteristic even of the Great Church within
the Roman Empire.
The Manichees were divided into two main classes, the Elect
and the Hearers. The ‘Elect’ alone was the true Manichee, the
‘Hearer’ was no more than an adherent, but the renunciations
exacted of the Elect were severe and their numbers were com-
paratively small. All Manichees were vegetarians, but the Elect
abstained from wine, from marriage, and from property. They
were supposed to live a wandering life, possessing no more than
food for a day and clothes for a year. Their obligation not to pro-
duce fresh life or to take it was so absolute that they might neither
sow nor reap, nor even break their bread themselves, ‘lest they
pain the Light which was mixed with it.’ So they went about, as
Indian holy men do, with a disciple who prepared their food for
them. ‘And when they wish to eat bread,’ we read in the Acta
Archelai^ ‘they pray first, speaking thus to the bread “I neither
1 See above, p. 497. ® See above, p. 499. ® See p. 492.
* Given in Epiphanius, Maer. lxvi.
XIV, III] THE ELECT AND THE HEARERS 51 1
reaped nor winnowed nor ground thee, nor set thee in an oven; it
was another did this, and brought to me: I eat thee innocently.”
And when he has said this for himself, he says to the disciple
‘T have prayed for thee.”’ On the other hand, it was one of the
first duties of the mere Hearers to provide food for the Elect, so
that in a country where there were any Manichees the Elect were
sure not to starve. Women as well as men entered the ranks of the
Elect.
There is a difference between the inner attitude of the Manichee
ascetic and the orthodox Christian monk. The latter, whether
hermit or coenobite, had retired from the world with a conscious-
ness of sin and a sense of personal unworthiness. It is not for no-
thing that ‘mourner’ is one of the Syriac technical terms for a
Christian monk. The Manichee Elect does not appear to have
been a ‘mourner.’ He was indeed fenced about with tabus, but
by virtue of his profession he was already Righteous: he was
called Zaddtka^ ‘the righteous’ (in Arabic Zindtk), by his co-
religionists. And though he was forbidden to prepare his food
himself, yet a sacramental, even physical, benefit accrued to the
Universe through his eating it. This came to pass through the
particles of Light contained in the food passing into his own pure
body, which at his death would be conveyed somehow into the
realms of Light. Exactly how this was effected our documents do
not tell us : it may be doubted if Mani himself had a consistent
theory about it.
The religious duties of the Hearers can best be inferred from
the Kkuastuanifl, i.e. ‘Confession,’ a document which has been
recovered almost entire from the finds in Chinese Turkestan^. It
is written in Turkestan Turkish, and contains a preamble fol-
lowed by confession of fifteen kinds of sins, each section ending
with the Persian (not Turkish) formula Manastar htrza, which
means ‘O cleanse our spots!’
The Khuastuanijt is more than a mere confession. Each section
begins by formulating the true Manichee doctrine, and then goes
on to say ‘ If we have neglected or denied this, we are sinful and
must cry Manastar htrzaJ It is thus a profession of faith also, the
most instructive document we possess for studying Manichaean
religion as a working system. But it must be borne in mind how
ambiguous a term is ‘God’ when used by Manichees, for to them
‘God’ is rather a substance than a person. Tangri, lit. ‘God,’ is
^ Edited by A. von Le Coq in Jsum. Roy. Jsiat. Soc. igii, pp. 277 —
314; a revised and improved translation is given by W. Bang in Musion,
XXXVI, 1923, pp. 137-242.
512 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap.
rather to be rendered ‘divine’ than ‘ God,’ for the Supreme Being
when thought of as personal is called Azrua, i.e. the Persian
Zrww, which practically corresponds to our use of ‘the Eternal.’
The Primal Man is here called i.e. ‘Ormuzd.’ This
does not imply an adaptation of Persian or Magian myth: it is
merely the name used of the Manichaean figure, just as if one
were to call the President of a non-Christian religion its Pope.
Further, we have to bear in mind the fourfold nature of God
according to Manichee theology. ‘ Mani enjoined belief,’ says the
Fihrisfi-^ ‘in four great things — God, His Light, His Power, His
Wisdom. And God is the King of the Paradise of Light, His Light
is the Sun and Moon, His Power is the Five Angels, viz. the Air,
the Wind, theLight, the WaterandtheFire, and His Wisdom is the
Holy Religion’, which last in the Kkuasiuanift is identified some-
times with the Prophets who announced it, sometimes with the
ordinances themselves. This fourfold conception of the Divine de-
termines a good deal of the structure of the document.
The Prologue sets forth that as the Divine Khormuzta with the
Divine Five Elements came down to fight against the Demons of
the Dark, but was overcome and temporarily lost his Divine Light,
so we, the penitent Manichees, if we have erred and lost touch
with Azrua the pure bright God and become mixed with the
Dark, may nevertheless hope to be restored, even as the Primal
Man was.
After treating of blasphemy against God, against Sun and
Moon, against the Five Divine Elements, and against social
offences and false religion, it deals with offences after entering
true religion®, the preamble to which forms a sort of Manichaean
Credo. ‘Since coming to know the True God and the Pure Law,
we have learnt the law of the Two Roots and the Three Moments,
that the Light-root is God-land, the Dark-root is Hell-land ; yea,
we learned what had been before land and sky existed, why God
and Demon had battled against each other, how Light and Dark
had intermingled, and who had created land and sky; yea, we
learned in what way this land and sky will be annihilated, and how
Light and Dark will be separated, and what will happen after-
wards: to the divine Azrua, the divine Sun and Moon, the divine
Power, and the Prophets, we turned, we trusted, we became
Hearers. Four bright seals on our hearts have we sealed, (i) To
Love, the seal of the divine Azrua, (2) To Believe, the seal of the
divine Sun and Moon, (3) To Fear, the seal of the Five divine
^ Flflgel, op. cit. p. 95.
® Sections 1—8,
XIV, in] THE MANICHAEAN CREDO 513
elements, (4) Wise Wisdom, the seal of the Prophets.’ This
Manichaean Credo is permeated by the four-fold conception of
God’s nature, which has been mentioned above. The section then
goes on to say that if the penitents should have violated their faith,
then—Mamstdr kJrza I
The remaining six sections refer to various offences in fasting,
almsgiving and other religious duties. It ends saying ‘every day,
every month, trespass, sin do we commit ! To the Light-Gods, to
the Law’s Majesty, to the pure Elect Ones, from trespass, from
sin escaping, we pray Mafidstdr Mrza V
There is a real difference between Christian and Manichee
ethics. It can be expressed in a single sentence: Christianity is
concerned with persons, Manichaeism with things. Christian
sympathy goes out to men and women, who even in a fallen state
are regarded as the image of God, and for whom Christ has died.
The sympathy of the Manichee was directed, not towards men,
but towards the Light imprisoned in men. Men were, to some
extent and at second hand, in the image of God, but they were
only a sort of pirated copy, made by the evil dark Archons to
imitate the Messenger of the Light who had appeared to them.
The third of the four Homilies (published in 1934^) is of
historical interest. It gives an account of the ‘crucifixion’ (i.e. the
martyrdom) of Mani by Vahram I (Varanes, Bahram), grandson
of Shapur, Mani’s patron. It mentions one Innaeus, chief of the
Manichees after Mani’s successor Sisinnius, who pleased
Vahram II and secured for the Manichees some peace from
persecution. There seems to be another part of this work at
Berlin, so that we may hope in future to be able to know some-
thing of the course of Manichee history before Islam overwhelmed
Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism alike.
Meanwhile perhaps the most instructive product of the won-
derful recovery of specimens of Manichaean literature during the
present century are the many examples of Manichee hymns,
which, like Christian hymns, more accurately depict the hopes
and aspirations of those who used them than books of formal in-
struction or controversy. No doubt the Manichaeans’ ethic is
ascetic, ‘a fugitive and cloistered virtue,’ but their hymns prove
that their religion inspired in them genuine emotion, full of
loyalty to Mani and to Jesus. ‘ Ainen, to thee, first born Apostle,
Divine Lord Mani our Saviour!’ Or again: ‘Thou art God and
Full Moon, Jesus Lord, Full Moon of waxing gloijl. . .Mani,
new Full Moon 1 . . . Holy one, Jesu, cleanse my stains ! Divine
^ Polofsky, op. cit. pp. 42-85.
xa
33
514 THE CHURCH IN THE EAST [chap. XlV. iii
Lord Manij deliver my soul!’ Or again: ‘O Jesu, Virgin of
Light I O Lord Mani 1 Do Thou make peace within me I O Light-
bringer, deliver my soul out of this born-dead life, deliver my soul
out of this born-dead life 1 ’ We may quarrel with the form of ex-
pression, both from the literary and the theological point of view,
but it is clear that the Manichees who composed these pathetic
ejaculations must have been moved by genuine religious sentiment.
Such were the main characteristics of the religion, which
challenged official Christianity all through the century in which
the Orthodox and Arians were struggling for mastery. It failed in
the end, but the fear and alarm the Manichaean propaganda ex-
cited was real : it can best be felt by us in reading the story of
Porphyry of Gaza and his encounter with Julia, the Manichaean
missionary^. It was a serious conflict. The religion of Mani,
when we look below the fantastic mythology with which he
clothed his ideas, is a serious attempt to explain the presence of
evil in the world we live in, and it does combine immediate pessi-
mism with ultimate optimism — perhaps the most favourable
atmosphere for the religious sentiment. It is true that the Mani-
chees thought of our world as the result of an accident, and that
no true improvement is possible till it is altogether abolished. This
world, they thought, is bad to begin with, and it will go from bad
to worse. But they believed that Light is really greater and
stronger than the Dark, that in the end all that was good in their
being would be collected in the domain of Light, a realm alto-
gether swayed by Intelligence, Reason, Mind, good Imagination,
and good Intention. Though at the same time there would
always exist another region, dark, and dominated by unregulated
desire, it would only be peopled by beings for whom such a
region was appropriate, and that they would be separated off for
ever from invading the region of Light and so producing another
Smudge, such as our world essentially is, according to the
Manichaean view.
^ See the account in the Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, by Mark the
Deacon, trans. by G. F. Hill, pp. 94-101.
CHAPTER XV
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WEST
I. THE CHRISTIAN PERSECUTIONS
T he attitude of the Christian community to this ■world and to
its political organization in the Roman Empire was already
unambiguously defined in the Apostolic Age, and it remained
unaltered in the period which immediately succeeded. Even when
the Second Coming of the Lord no longer possessed the over-
whelming imminence of the first age and the community had
become accustomed to the thought that they must still long
await the dawn of that epoch of glory and blessedness, the con-
sciousness that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth re-
mained thoroughly alive. It is true that they prepared themselves
for a continuing sojourn amidst the conditions of the present age,
that they freely acknowledged the benefits of the civil order and
in accordance with Paul’s exhortation (Rom. xiii) rendered it the
obedience that was due, while in their common worship they
called upon God to grant his protection to Emperor and Empire;
but they were conscious that they themselves already possessed
full citizenship in the kingdom of the heavenly Christ, which at
its full manifestation at the last day would put an end to the
dominion of the Romans and establish upon a rejuvenated earth a
new life in accordance with divine laws. The Imperium Romanum
wore for the Christians the aspect of something temporary, to
which they adapted themselves in the confident expectation of a
better dispensation to come.
But in the practice of daily life this inward aloofness found little
visible expression. In his spirited Apology Tertullian protests to
his pagan readers that the Christians avail themselves of the good
things of this world exactly like their opponents, that in common
with them they make use of the legal and commercial system and
of all the institutions of public life, and that they engage in the
ordinary callings of men just as they do. And over and above this
he boasts that they are honest taxpayers, who for their Christian
conscience’ sake disdain the usual deceits and evasions for de-
frauding the revenue. As the only point of difference, he names
Note : For Church institutions mentionedln the first section of this chapter
ase;ieCtiQh:mSig';;- : .S
5i6 the church IN THE WEST [chap.
their refusal to join in the worship of the pagan gods^. Yet there
was something further. Not all professions were permissible for
the Christian. Not only were the trades of immorality or such
activities as were connected with pagan worship forbidden to him,
but also participation in public offices and military service, which
meant that a considerable part of civic activity was denied to the
Christian. In such things their inward indifference to the life of
the State became outwardly perceptible too.
In personal intercourse the Christians’ attitude to this world
and all its might and splendour naturally showed itself in a
thousand ways and soon gave rise throughout the world to funda-
mental mistrust and to illusions, born of hatred, which by degrees
gained ever sharper definition. Not only were some of those tales
of atrocities related of the Jews transferred to the Christians, but
newly invented abominations were added to them. It was known
that the Christian gatherings for worship culminated in a common
meal which was called Aga-pe, i.e. ‘Love-feast,’ and that no un-
initiated person was admitted. And since it was also known that
amongst themselves the Christians called each other brother and
sister, it was easy for prurient imaginations to fabricate stories of
secret nocturnal orgies, which in the loathsome darkness gave
free rein to incestuous lusts and converted the horrible crime of
Oedipus into an act of worship. It was also learned that at this
sacred meal the flesh of the Son of Man was eaten and his blood
drunk. From this arose, as may be readily conceived, the con-
tention that the Christians slaughtered and devoured children.
But even where such tales were not credited, the conviction of the
hostility of Christianity to the State, indeed of its fundamental
hatred of mankind and of its coarse superstition opposed to all
culture, was firmly rooted. About the year i8o the Platonic
philosopher Celsus gives well-considered and pointed expression
to the repugnance felt by the educated classes of his time to
Christianity.
These anti-Christian sentiments were the driving force behind
all the Christian persecutions before the year 250: they exercised
a decisive influence upon the attitude of the authorities and in
consequence upon their estimate of the legal position. In general,
the principle laid down by Trajan in his rescript to Pliny (vol. xi,
p. 255 that the Christians were not to be sought out, held
good for the whole empire. But if valid accusations came before
the authorities, the Christian had then to offer sacrifice or die.
This seems strange, but it shows us clearly that the question of the
^ Tertullian, Jpel. 42. ® Pliny, Ep, x, 96 (97) and 97 (98).
XV, i] ANTI-CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT 517
toleration of GKristianity was dealt with, not from a juridical, but
from a political, point of view. The ChristiansVhostile attitude to
the State was regarded as judicially well-established. But this
attitude as such was not punished, and the authorities gave every
Christian who was denounced the opportunity of giving evidence
to the contrary by offering sacrifice before the statue of the em-
peror. Only when he would not obey the order to sacrifice, and
thereby violated the reverence due to the majesty of the Empire
and its tutelary gods, was he condemned to deatL
Since, then, the State did not seek out the Christians, the
Christians remained tolerated, and they made the fullest use of
this situation: their uncommonly successful expansion, whether
we reckon it in time or by its extent, affords clear evidence of this.
Official action was only taken against the Christians when special
provocation so roused popular feeling that it resulted in definable
charges against definite persons: granted that those who made
accusations were sometimes raving mobs who with howls of
execration at last dragged the mishandled victim of their frenzy
before the tribunal. The Christians vainly asked again and again
that their legal position should be made clear, demanding proof of
the atrocities or other crimes attributed to them by the populace.
The authorities, as far as we can see, took no steps in the matter,
and they likewise studiously avoided all discussion of religious
questions. They were not conducting religious prosecutions, but
using their powers to secure tranquillity, and punishing the
provocative disloyalty of those who refused to offer sacrifice.
Whoever offered sacrifice returned home unmolested, and the
officials did not concern themselves with his Christian beliefs
or his previous activities.
We hear repeatedly that special Imperial edicts had prohibited
the profession of Christianity. But we never hear that these edicts
had made it the duty of the officials to stage Christian persecutions.
These edicts then were only repetitions of Trajan’s directions.
And the manner in which they were carried out was left as before
to the political judgment of the provincial authorities. About the
year 21^ the famous jurist Ulpian prepared a collection of such
anti-Christian edicts, not of course with an antiquarian or histori-
cal interest, but in order to clarify criminal procedure by system-
atization of the law^. As may be readily understood, this collect-
ion has perished without leaving a trace. But we have preserved
in Eusebius^ two Imperial edicts which deal with the Christian
question in a manner that departs so widely from the uniform
^ Lactantius, Div. Inst, v, ii, ig. ® Hist. Eccl. iv, g and 13.
518 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST Ichap,
attitude of the State as everywhere else attested that it does not
seem possible to accept these documents as genuine.
The accounts of Christian persecutions came to take two literary
forms in this early period. The first is that of the letter. In this
form We have the Martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna (156) and
the account of the martyrs of Lyons (i 77). The other form is that
of the minutes (Acts) of the trial : and this later became the rule. But
it would be false to assume that in Acts of this kind we possess
shorthand reports, or even official records of the Roman authori-
ties. They are literary productions no less than the accounts com-
posed as letters. If they wear the garb of official minutes, this is
merely an attempt to give them a form that will bring home the
credibility of the account to the minds of their readers and
hearers. The Alexandrian anti-Semites, too, honoured the memory
of their champions, who were executed under Claudius, in the
form of such minutes^.
The first instances of this type date from the time of Marcus
Aurelius (161—80). In Pergamum two Christians named Carpus
and Papylus, the latter a councillor from Thyatira, were in vain
put to the torture by the Proconsul who was staying in the city.
They steadfastly refused to offer sacrifice and were finally burned
alive. Then a woman named Agathonice ran forward out of the
crowd and, overcome with longing for the glory of heaven, threw
herself into the flames with the martyrs. In Rome at about the
same date the Christian philosopher and apologist Justin was
beheaded with six of his disciples. The most impressive document
remains, however, the Latin Acts of the execution of the martyrs
of Scilli in Africa: the unaffected directness of these simple people,
and the conciseness of the narrative which accords so wonderfully
with it, still produce the same effect on us to-day as once on the
church of Africa. The minutes begin in correct style with the
date, I August 1 80, the scene is laid in Carthage in the council
chamber of the Proconsul Saturninus. And then in question and
answer the melancholy drama is unfolded before us : confession of
Christianity, refusal to sacrifice, rejection of time for reflection,
sentence — and ‘all said, “Thanks be to God!” and were im-
mediately beheaded for the name of Christ.’
The counterpart to this is supplied by the letter® which the
communities at Vienne and Lyons wrote to their sister com-
munities in Asia Minor to acquaint them with what had befallen
1 See vol. x,p. 683; U. Wilcken, ‘Zum alexandrinischen Antisemitismus’
(Jbh. sacks. GeseU. d. Whs. xxvii, 1909, 23, pp. izb sqq.).
® Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, i, 3-3, 3.
XV, 1] EARLY MARTYRDOMS AND ACTA 519
them^. In it we are given a full description, deeply moving in its
terrible plainness, of a persecution which overtook the two com-
munities in A.D. 177, What incident actually occasioned it we do
not learn. But suddenly throngs of people rush through the
streets, break into the houses, and drag the Christians together
into the market-place with every kind of maltreatment, until the
governor appears and so restores order to the proceedings. In
these two cities there is a regular hunting-out of the Christians:
they are thrown in crowds into the prisons, interrogated, tortured,
and whoever denies Christ is set free. But the suspicion of the
rabble remains alert, and so even these apostates are re-arrested
and now regain their hold upon the faith and courage shown by
their companions. They now confess steadfastly and suffer the
same fate. Every torment that bloodthirsty imagination can
devise is enacted in the darkness of the prison-cell or amid the
hatred and publicity of the arena. Their mangled limbs are roasted
to cinders on red-hot chairs, the brave slave-girl Blandina meets
her end at the stake, the ninety-year-old bishop Pothinus, brutally
mishandled, dies in prison, and round him rows of unfortunates
gasp out their lives stretched in the stocks. But the communities
of the two Gallic cities do not break down under this persecution.
From the steadfastly endured sufferings of the martyrs they had
won the assurance of heavenly succour and come to know how in
the most fearful pains of death a heavenly radiance enlightens the
eyes that have been granted the vision of the glory of God beyond
the reach of human sight. When earthly torments threaten to
overwhelm the body, then God’s mercy lifts its witnesses above all
such pains and makes them equal to the angels. He who has
come victorious through this conflict is already here on earth
transported into the world to come, bearing witness by his deeds,
words, and looks to the truth of the living Christ.
What the communities of Gaul wrote to their fellow-Christians
in Asia Minor was the universal experience of Christendom
wherever martyrs won the crown of victory. And so every one of
these testimonies in blood became a seed from which there sprang
in a thousand hearts new fruit for Christianity. Thus in the
martyr 1 the old enthusiasm of primitive Christianity revived, and
the reverence which the community already paid to their bravery
and contempt of death from purely human motives was united
with the recognition of the holy Spirit who revealed himself in the
^ On the connotation of ‘martyr’ see F. Jackson and K. Lake, The
Beginnings of Christianity, vol. V, note v and H. v. Campenhausen, Die Idee
des Martyriums in der alien Kirche.
520 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
martyrs. Thus too these men and women became authorities em-
powered to give a decisive ruling on important questions of the
community. This became especially evident in the days of the
Decian persecution, and in many places led to conflicts with the
episcopate, which felt its authority impaired by the claims of
the martyrs, A living picture of the enthusiastic temper of the
martyrs is given us by a document from North Africa, which in
its own way is unique, the Passion of Perpetua and her com-
panions (see below, p. 594). In it the imprisoned Christians have
themselves recorded their experiences, and the principal heroine,
Vibia Perpetua, and one of her companions named Saturus give a
full account of the visions vouchsafed to them, and in so doing
they disclose quite naively their consciousness that a martyr has
the right to demand such revelations from God, and that his inter-
cession can procure the deliverance of departed souls in the world
to come and his exhortation reconcile contending clerics upon
earth. The appended description of their last agonies not only
depicts the horrors that were devised for the entertainment of the
multitude who filled the arena, but also enables us to trace the
feelings of the victims and the ecstatic insensibility which raised
them above the physical torments of these terrible scenes. This
Passion was enacted in the reign of Septimius Severus in the year
203.
We hear at about the same time of a Christian persecution in
Egypt, which drove the teaching of Christianity out of Alexandria
and exacted as its victim amongst others Origen’s father. No
authentic Acts of the martyrs survive for the immediately succeed-
ing period. That the emperors of the Syrian dynasty, with their
leanings towards syncretism, took no great pleasure in themselves
initiating Christian persecutions is intelligible enough, as it is
also that the reaction under Maximinus Thrax carried off, along
with many high officials of this period, a number of leading
churchmen. And now too, when districts of Asia Minor were
suffering from severe earthquakes, popular fury against the
Christians blazed up fiercely once more; the Christians were held
responsible for these terrible manifestations of the undisguised
wrath of the gods, and in these years threatening clouds were
indeed gathering over the Roman Empire. The Persians were
pressing forward in Syria, and on the lower Danube the Goths
broke across the frontier and threatened with dissolution an
Empire already weakened by economic depression and ever
recurrent disputes for the throne.
The year 249 again witnessed a persecution of the Christians
XV, I] DECIAN PERSECUTION m
by the excited, mob in Alexandria, and then there began under
the Emperor Decius the first systematic Christian persecution,
organized for the whole Empire by Imperial command. The new
Imperator was confronted with a task of unprecedented difficulty
and wished to unite all the forces of the Empire for its achieve-
ment. He also called to his aid the hearts of his subjects by
appointing a general sacrifice of homage and intercession before
the images of the tutelary gods of the Empire. In all cities,
villages, and hamlets sacrificial commissions were set up, which
were to supervise its execution and to deliver to everyone who
took part a written certificate of having performed the act of
sacrifice. Thus would be achieved both the propitiation of
the angry gods and the eradication of the hated Christians: for
those Christians who obeyed the Imperial command thereby
dissociated themselves from the Church as apostates from their
faith, while those who steadfastly resisted were removed by
death.
All the witnesses we have concur in their evidence that these
measures for the first time seriously imperilled the existence of the
communities. The Christians, when summoned to appear, yielded
in great numbers to coercion and offered sacrifice. And the
cunning persons who by bribery purchased evidence of their
loyalty without really offering sacrifice were judged only a little
more leniently by the Church, and in the end they too were
reckoned among the lapsed^. The number of martyrs was large
and at their head stand bishops Fabian of Rome, Babylas of
Antioch, and Alexander of Jerusalem, But taken as a whole there
were relatively few who remained constant by comparison with
the many apostates. However, trustworthy Acts of the martyrs for
the Decian persecution have hardly been preserved, and though it
might seem as though Decius had attained his object, the facts
that have been handed down are to us a proof to the contrary.
The Church had been able to endure the occasional defection of
individuals in the sporadic persecutions of the earlier period and
to punish apostasy with irrevocable exclusion. The wholesale
defection of the Decian persecution could no longer be met with
the full rigour of the tradition that had existed hitherto. Even
before the persecution ceased, the possibility was under considera-
tion in the most widely separated Church provinces of admitting
the lapsed to the penance of the Church and thereby opening the
way for their restoration to the Christian fellowship (see below,
p. 53855-.).
1 Cyprian, £p. 30, 3; 55.145 27. .
THE CHURCH IN THE WEST {-chap.
Tile first to be inclined to such leniency were the circles of
enthusiastic martyrs who, with their inherent authority from the
holy Spirit, granted pardon to their weaker brethren and urged
upon the bishops, or even dictated to them, their admission to the
fellowship of the Eucharist; and in many places their injunction
found a ready acceptance. But even where such unrestrained
readiness to pardon met with resistance from episcopal authority,
it was not contested that in principle the restoration of the lapsed
was possible, the only requirement being a properly regulated
procedure for attaining this end. In one way or another the fruits
of victory were snatched from the hands of the pagan State. The
masses of the lapsed returned to the Church, and the steadfast
confessions of the many martyrs served only to strengthen among
Christians as a whole their sense of the invincibility of Christianity.
The State itself shrank from pressing its policy to a logical con-
clusion against all who opposed it: it was simply not possible to
exterminate the Christians by bloodshed, and thus by the spring
of 251 the fury of the persecution abated, and in the summer it
came to an end with the death of the Emperor, who lost his life
on the Gothic front.
This, the most severe and widespread onslaught upon Christi-
anity, was followed in the course of the next few years by a few
slighter clashes, and in the summer of 257 the Emperor Valerian
determined on a new assault upon the Church so displeasing to
the gods. Again the blow was directed in the first instance against
the leaders of the community : this time bishop Xystus of Rome
suffered together with his deacons, at whose head stood Laurence,
glorified by legend; and almost at the same time fell the head of
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (25 8). But two years later Valerian was
taken prisoner by the Persians, in whose hands, to the dishonour
of the Roman Empire, he died. His son and successor Gallienus
had good grounds for putting an end to the Christian persecution.
Indeed he even issued an edict of toleration, in which the Christ-
ians were granted the use of their places of worship and their
cemeteries, and a general ordinance was issued that they were not
to be further molested^. So ended the State action that began with
Decius. The martyrs of this period of persecution won for the
Church what hitherto she had never possessed, the recognition of
her right to exist.
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii, 13.
XV, II]
TOLERATION
sn
II. THE INNER LIFE OF THE CHURCH
The earliest description of the Christian Sunday service comes
from the pen of the apologist Justin (c. 1 50)^ and may he regarded
as evidence for the custom of the Roman church. The congrega-
tion assembles and listens first to a reading from the Gospels or
the writings of the prophets, to which a fixed time is allotted.
There follows a sermon of exhortation by the officiant. And then
begins the second act of the service, to which only the baptized
are admitted, whereas in the first part, not only the whole body of
the catechumens may take part, but probably also non-Christians
who are believed to have a serious interest in Christianity and
perhaps also to be inclined to join the community. This second
part, which consists in the observance of the Eucharist®, begins
with a common prayer of the congregation for the salvation of
Christendom and its moral perfecting, that it may attain to eternal
salvation. Then the members of the congregation salute each
other with the kiss of brotherhood as the symbol of that common
brotherhood in which all Christians are bound together. There
follows the ‘Offertory,’ i.e. members of the congregation bring to
the officiant bread, wine, and water, and he then recites over these
gifts placed upon the table a prayer of thanksgiving, the Euchar-
istia^ and at its conclusion the congregation responds with ‘Amen.’
This prayer contains also the invocation of the divine Logos, in
which the officiant prays forhis descent upon the bread and wine that
to the Christians they may become the saving food of the body and
blood of Jesus. After this supreme act of the rite the deacons dis-
tribute the consecrated gifts to those who are present and later they
take them also to those who are absent, to the sick, and to those in
prison . The conclusion of the service, however, consists in the collec-
tion of voluntary offerings, which are deposited with the officiant
and enable him to succour the sick, the widows and orphans, those in
prison, the needy, or strangers sojourning with the community.
We see therefore already contained in the Roman observance
of the Eucharist at about the middle of the second century all the
essential elements of the Sunday liturgy that still determine its
course to the present day. At the same time, however, it is clear
that here already a decided change has taken place as compared
with the earliest times. The rite described by Justin corresponds
to the type of morning service still familiar at the present day. In
^ Justin, Apol. I, 65—7.
2 ‘Eucharist’ is used throughout this chapter for the celebration of the
Lord’s Supper, the Greek ‘ Eucharistia’’ for the prayer of thank^ving alone.
524 : THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
the earliest period the Eucharist belongs to the late afternoon
hours and is the climax of a common meal of ritual character in
which the community, or in many cases perhaps only sections of
the community (house-communities), are united in a celebration
in which religious sociability is combined with the sacramental
partaking of the body and blood of the Lord. By about the middle
of the second century, the sacramental meal has developed into
an independent rite and has been transferred to Sunday morning
and joined with the service of reading and preaching.
The common fellowship meal of the community continued to
exist alongside it and was still a regular practice about the year
200; but it then died out slowly in the course of the third century,
and survived only in its formal rudiments. Tertullian tells us the
form such a celebration took in Carthage at the end of the second
century^. Rich and poor join together in this Love-feast. First a
prayer is said standing, then all recline and the meal begins; but
the food and drink are partaken of in moderation and conversa-
tion is kept within proper bounds; for they know that the Lord is
with them at table. When the meal is ended, and at sunset the
lights are lit, there are readings from holy scripture, or they
listen to recitation or song by members of the brethren. A final
prayer concludes the gathering. Just the same form is taken by a
celebration of the kind at about the same period in Rome, and the
description there given of it adds a few new details to the picture^.
Here the rule is that a well-to-do host invites those who take part,
and the celebration is held in his house. And it is strictly prescribed
that a cleric must preside at the celebration and must break the
hallowed bread, which, though strictly distinguished from the
bread of the Eucharist, is distributed as consecrated food amongst
those taking part. But here already the transformation of the Agape
into a simple act of charity is discussed, and mention is made of the
possibility of handing the guests provisions to take away with
them, instead of sitting down with them to a common meal.
The source from which we derive this information is the
Church Order^ composed by Hippolytus, the rival bishop of
Rome, which preserves for us also the oldest liturgical form for the
Sunday celebration of the Eucharist, apart from the Didache^
which belongs to a quite different type (vol. xi, p. 289). After the
^ Tertullian, Apol. 39, 16—19.
2 Hippolytus, Church Order, 48—50 Funkj Hauler, p. 1 13 ry.; Connolly,
p. 187 ry. See following note.
® Hippolytus, Church Order. The principal texts are contained in: (i) for
the Latin version, E. Hauler, Didascaliae Aposiolorum Fragrnenta Uermensia
Latina, accedmt Canonum qui dicmttar Aposiolorum et Aegyptiorum Reliquiae,
; 525 ;
kiss of peacCj the deacons place the offering in the form of bread
and wine and water upon the altar-table, the bishop lays his hands
upon it, Rtid the Euckarisjtia begins with the following dialogue :
Bishop : The Lord be with you.
; And with thy spirit.
Hearts up (az^ct)
Congregation : We have them to the Lord 7rpo<? top Kvpiop),
Bishop: Let us give thanks to the Lord.
Congregation: It is meet and right
Bishop: We thank Thee, God, through Thy beloved Servant Jesus
Christ whom in the last times Thou hast sent us as Saviour and Re-
deemer and Messenger of Thy counsel, the Logos who comes from
Thee, through whom Thou hast made all things, whom Thou wast
pleased to send from heaven into the womb of the virgin, and in her
body he became flesh and was shown forth as Thy Son, born of the
holy Spirit and the virgin. To fulfil Thy will and to prepare Thee a
holy people, he stretched out his hands, when he suffered, that he might
release from suffering those who have believed on Thee.
And when he delivered himself to a voluntary passion, to loose
death and to break asunder the bands of the devil, and to trample hell
and to enlighten the righteous and to set up the boundary stone and to
manifest the resurrection, he took a loaf, gave thanks, and spake,
‘Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you.’ Likewise also the
cup and said, ‘This is my blood which is poured out for you. As often
as you do this, you make my commemoration.’
Remembering therefore his death and resurrection, we offer to Thee
the loaf and the cup and give thanks to Thee that Thou hast counted
us worthy to stand before Thee and to do Thee priestly service.
And we beseech Thee, that Thou send down Thy holy Spirit upon
this offering of the church. Unite it and grant to all the saints who
partake of it to their fulfilling with holy Spirit, to their strengthening of
faith in truth, that we may praise and glorify Thee through Thy
Servant Jesus Christ, through whom to Thee be glory and honour in
Thy holy church now and ever, Amerf.
This prayer can be regarded as the pattern, and in a certain
sense even as the foundation, of all Eucharistic prayers that have
Leipzig, 1900, p. loi, I. 31-p. 121 ; (2) for the Ethiopic, Arabic, and Coptic
versions, together with English translations, G. Horner, The Statutes of the
Apostles^ London, 1904. See also F. X, Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones
Apostolorum^ voL n, Paderborn, 1905, pp. 97-119; T, Schermann, Die
allgemeine Kirchenordnungy Erster Teil, Studien zur Geschichte and Kultur
des Altertums, Dritter Erganzungsband, Paderborn, 1914.
For a critical discussion, see E. Schwartz, Ueber die pseudoapostolischen
Kirchenordnungen^ Schriften der wiss. Gesell. in Strassburg, Strassburg, 1910;
R. H. Connolly, The So-^called Egyptian Church Order and derived docu-
ments^ Texts and Studies, vol. vni, No. 4, Cambridge, 1916 (a continuous
text is printed in Appendix B, pp. 175-194).
^ Hippolytus, Church Order ^ gr, 11-21 Funk; Hauler, p. 106 jry,;
526 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
come down to us; and even in the modern liturgical forms of most
of the Christian confessions its formulas or ideas can be clearly
recognized, even though in varying degrees. The actual Euchar-
istia, i.e. the thanksgiving of tihe person praying, relates to the
benefits which God has bestowed upon mankind through the
sending of His Son and through His passion. The mention of the
suffering introduces the ‘night in which the Lord was betrayed,’
and leads on to the recitation of the words of institution, upon
which, in expansion of the Pauline conclusion (i Cor. xi, 26),
follows the so-csll&d Anamnesis^ which gives expression to the
consciousness of the congregation that they are celebrating the
commemoration of the death and resurrection. And then there
follows a formula praying for the descent of the holy Spirit upon
the elements which seems to be the root of the later so-called
Eficksis^.
These elements, bread and wine, are here described as the
offering of the congregation, and the officiant thanks God that he
is exercising the function of a priest. We here find it clearly
expressed — and this was already indicated by earlier evidence — that
the Christian church celebrates the Eucharist as a ritual sacrifice,
and accordingly ascribes to the officiant the office of a priest. The
celebration is here regarded as a sacrifice, because the congrega-
tion lays the elements of bread and wine as its gifts upon the altar.
These, however, by the descent of the holy Spirit are filled with a
wonderful divine power, and the congregation which partakes of
this heavenly food presents a parallel with the members of cult-
fellowships who partake of the divinely-imbued sacrificial meal:
this idea too is already anticipated in Paul (i Cor. x, 18—21).
Alongside both these ideas of sacrifice goes also a third, and this is
the earliest in the sphere of Christian thought. According to this
idea, prayer is the only sacrifice worthy to be offered to God, and
accordingly the sacrificial character of the Eucharist has its basis
in the prayer of thanksgiving, i.e. the ^ Eucharistia'
About the middle of the third century in Cyprian^ an entirely
new conception of sacrifice can be observed, which then developed
rapidly and proved decisive for the Catholic interpretation of the
Mass. According to this conception, the act of the priest is an
imitation of the sacrifice of Christ, whose body and blood are
Homer, p. 139 sq., p. 245, p. 307 sq.\ Connolly, p. 176; and cf. H. Lietz-
mann, Messe md Herrmmahl, eine Studie %ur Geschichte der Liturgie, pp.
174 sqq. and also pp. 158 sq^,, p. 42 sq., p. 57 sq., p. 80 sq.
1 Justin knows of a similar prayer for the descent of the Logos {Apol.
I, 66, 2). See above, p, 523. 2 Cyprian, Ep. 63, 14.
XV, Ii] THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUCHARIST 5^7
again offered as once upon Golgotha. Here we have quite plainly
before our eyes an idea of primitive religion transferred to a
Christian cult. The solemn rehearsal or the dramatic re-enactment
of some event from the history of the gods releases the same divine
forces and produces the same effects as were once displayed at the
time of the original occurrence. This view underlies many actions
of the mystery religions, and it is found at the most varied levels of
ritual practice down to ordinary healing-magic. It was under the
influence of this idea that the community attempted to reach an
understanding of the miraculous character of the Eucharist.
Ideas derived from primitive religion soon surrounded also
the rite of baptism with ceremonial additions. The water is
cleansed by solemn exorcism from the elemental spirits that
dwell in it^ ; but the candidate too has had driven out of him the evil
spirit which dwells in him in that he is a pagan®. As early as the
beginning of the third century we find the custom by which the
candidate in a solemn formula renounces Satan and all his service
and all his works, and then gives his oath of allegiance {sacra-
mentum) to his new lord Jesus by the recitation of the creed. After
the baptism, which cleanses the pagan from his sins, he is an-
ointed and receives the holy Spirit by the laying on of the
bishop’s hands. In this way he is finally received into the Christian
fellowship and, immediately after his baptism, joins in the
Eucharist®. In Egypt, Rome, and Carthage it was the custom to
deliver to the candidates at their first communion, in addition to
bread and wine, a cup of milk and honey, to give them a foretaste
of the heavenly food of which the blessed partake in the Kingdom
of God^. In this rite, too, borrowing from the ancient mystery
cults springs to the eye. Along with these two great acts of the
liturgical life, we find already at the beginning of the third century
a number of special rites in process of development: thus the
ceremonial of consecration for bishops, priests, and deacons, and
many forms of blessing fruits and flowers®.
1 Hippolytus, Chttrch Order, i Funk; Connolly, p. 183; Cyprian,
Ep. 70, i; Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoio, 82. Tertullian, de
Bapt. 4.
2 Hippolytus, Church Order, 45, <^sq. Funk; Connolly, p. 183.
® Hippoljrtus, Church Order, 46 Funk; Hauler, pp. no— 13; Connolly,
pp. 183-6. Tertullian, de Bapt. 7—8; de Res. Camis, 8.
* Hippolytus, Church Order, % 2 sqq. Funk; Hauler, pp. in— 13;
Connolly, p. 185 sq. Tertullian, de Corona 3; adv. Marcionem, 1, 14;
Clement of Alexandria, Paed. i, 6, 45,
® Hippolytus, Church Order, 53—4 Funk; Hauler, p. 1151^.; Connolly,
528 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
Moreover the ordering of daily prayer also begins to make its
appearance, and it prepares the way for the later hallowing of the
canonical hours. In other respects the formation of a Christian
church year still remains within very narrow limits. The most
prominent division of time is still, as in primitive Christianity, the
week, in which Wednesday and Friday are marked as days of
fasting, while Sunday as the Lord’s, day is devoted to the service
of the Eucharist. A survival of the Jewish Law appears in the
widespread observance of the annual Passover, which is naturally
observed on 14 Nisan, the day commanded in the Old Testament,
or in other words on the day of the full moon of the spring month :
consequently on the same day as that on which the Jews keep the
festival. Only the content of the celebration is changed. Whilst
the Jews keep the Passover as a festival of national rejoicing, it is
for the Christians the day of the commemoration of the passion
and crucifixion of Christ and is accordingly marked by fasting,
till the first cock-crow announces the end of the night of suifering
and the community can ‘break the fast,’ i.e. join together in the
Eucharistic meaP.
By the side of this original form of the Passover celebration,
there arose as early as the second century another, which em-
phasized opposition to Judaism more strongly: from being a
commemoration of the death it came to be a yearly celebration of
the resurrection, in which as it were the weekly celebrations of the
resurrection on Sundays reached their culmination. This was
marked by the choice of the day. Instead of the night of the full
moon of the Jewish Passover, the night preceding the following
Sunday was chosen, and this Sunday with its celebration of the
Eucharist was made into the Christian festival of rejoicing,
preceded by the night of Christ’s rest in the grave, which was kept
with fasting and prayer. The custom also soon grew up of bap-
tizing the catechumens of the year on this night of Easter Eve. The
reason for this was that those seeking baptism were every year
formed into a group and together instructed in the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity.
In connection with this practice a tradition of instruction was
developed, which took many varying forms in the different dis-
tricts, but increasingly came to adopt the threefold creed, ex-
pounding the individual clauses in greater detail. In consequence,
this confession became the rule of faith and could be treated as a
secured formulation of the content of Christian truth; for in the
minds of the community the interpretation given of its clauses in
^ Epist, Jpost. 15 Schmidt.
XV, xi] PASSOVER AND EASTER 529
the instruction of catechumens was inseparably bound up with its
wording!. In the conflict with gnosticism, this instruction in the
Christian doctrine of the Church, thus linked with the baptismal
confession, was of the greatest service.
The festival of Easter introduced a period of fifty days, which
was observed as a time of Christian rejoicing, and concluded with
the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost too was originally no other than
the Old Testament day taken over from Judaism (Lev. xxiii,
15— 21), but it was observed in the Church as the festival of the
outpouring of the holy Spirit upon the Apostles (Acts ii). Beyond
these two days, Easter and Pentecost, the Church year was not
developed during the third century. The festival of Epiphany on
January 6, which makes its appearance amongst the gnostic
followers of Basilides in Egypt, remained for the time being un-
known to the Church®.
On the other hand, in the middle of the second century the
custom was already growing up in the individual communities of
celebrating the anniversaries of the deaths of their own outstand-
ing martyrs®. In the third century this custom spread more
widely and became established: the Decian persecution supplied
abundant material for the development of these community
celebrations, and thus arose within the churches the first begin-
nings of calendars of saints. Towards the end of the second century
we can begin to trace also the Christians’ peculiar style of burial,
which, apparently under the influence of Jewish models, developed
uniformly in different places, namely the burial of the dead in so-
called catacombs^. These are underground cemeteries such as
were frequently employed in the East and were not entirely un-
known even in the West. But the Christians clearly extended
them systematically under pressure of their distressed condition
in relation to the State and developed them into immense
constructions which in the persecutions of the third century could
be used as refuges for the persecuted communities or as secret
places for common worship. They always take the form of long
horizontal galleries driven into the earth, sometimes in several
storeys one above the other, and their walls are provided with
rectangular recesses, in which the bodies were laid without
1 Irenaeus, adv. Haer. i, 10, i— 2; i, 22, 15 iii, 4, i. Tertullian, de
Praescr. 13; adv. Prax. 2 and 30.
® Clement of Alexandria, Strom, i, 21, 146, i— z.
® Martyrium Polycarpi, 17—18.
* Her2X)g-Hauck, Realencyklopadi^, 804—13; Cabrol, Diet,
dl Archlologie Chretienne, n, pp. 2441— 7.
S3g the church in the west [chap.
coffins and wrapped only in cloths. A slab fixed with mortar shuts
off the grave from the corridor. Well-to-do families possessed
rectangular burial chambers branching off from these corridors,
and where the catacombs were constructed in particularly firm
soil, or were bored into the rock, we find also larger chambers and
hall-like structures, in which more spacious graves occur, with
semicircular vaulting (Arcosolia), or canopied graves. In these
chambers consecrated to the dead we meet also with the first
certain traces of a peculiar Christian art, and the rich abundance of
the catacomb pictures, found in various districts of the Roman
■Empire and extending over more than three centuries, affords
information on the earliest motifs and their manifold developments
in early Christian art. But we must always remember that owing
to this limited nature of the material we know only one phase,
though certainly an essential one, of the development of art, and
that we have also to reckon with the growth of the Christian
artistic impulse in the realm of the living (p. 565). This is brought
vividly before our eyes in the period after Constantine by the
surviving monuments.
III. THE ROMAN CHURCH
The Roman church became conscious at an early date that, as
the community of the capital of the world, she occupied a special
position in Christendom and must fashion herself accordingly.
The First Epistle of Clement (c. 9 5'), written in the name of the
community, already expresses a lively sense of obligation to come
to the aid of a sister community, threatened by internal dissension,
with good advice and furthermore with authoritative direction.
Naturally the authoritative character of its instruction is not made
to rest upon appeal to the importance of the writer of the letter,
but is given an objective basis in the word of the Bible and sup-
ported by emphasis upon the apostolic appointment of all leaders
of the community (episkopot) and their successors (vol. xi, p. 291).
But the Roman community’s sense of its own importance is
nevertheless unmistakable and it finds expression in the whole
tenor of the letter. Rome imparts profitable instruction to the
Corinthian community and regards this as her right and her duty:
but one gets the impression that the Romans would have been
greatly surprised had Corinth, let us say, in similar circumstances
dispatched such a letter of admonition to Rome.
Of the evolution of church order in Rome we have no precise
information. Towards the middle of the second century a certain
Hermas writes a book which bears the title The Shepherd and
XV, III] THE CATACOMBS: THE ROMAN SEE 531
consists of a highly elaborated series of visionary scenes, inter-
woven with lengthy exhortations to repentance. In it also appear
incidentally the leaders of the community, the episkopoi and
diakonoi, or presbyters, without any sharp differentiation between
the titles being recognizable (voL xi, p. 292). It is clear only that
Hermas still knows nothing of a monarchical episcopate in Rome,
but is thoroughly familiar with disputes about rank and honour
within this circle. But the question must have been cleared up
soon afterwards ; for in the second half of the century, indeed soon
after the year 150, we find single persons like Anicetus and
Soter coming forward as responsible leaders of the community.
We have indeed preserved in Irenaeus’- alist of the Roman bishops
from Linus, whom the apostles appointed, to Eleutherus. And as
Irenaeus still knew the successor of Eleutherus, bishop Victor,
this list may be appealed to as the ancient and official tradition of
the Roman church (vol. XI, p. 291).
We have also, from fourth-century sources^, lists of Roman
bishops which agree with this ancient list, continue it, and even
supply precise dates of the accession to office and day of death of
the individual popes. That for the early period these precise dates
are invented will not be seriously doubted. Many, however, are
still to-day inclined to accept the years given, at least those for the
second century, as trustworthy tradition. Unfortunately a critical
examination of the material does not confirm this belief. The
Roman list of popes was first supplied with trustworthy chrono-
logical details under Fabian about the year 240, and the period of
the rule of Pontian from 22 August 230 to 28 September 235 is
the first tolerably assured date of the Roman papal chronology.
All earlier dates assigned are guesses of later chronographers and
can make no claim to rest upon ancient tradition. On the other
hand, we have no reason for disputing the trustworthiness of the
list of names itself, and we may see in the persons named the
prominent men of the Roman college of presbyters from the days
of the apostles to the end of the second century, though it is only
after Anicetus that we can speak of monarchical government by
one bishop.
We cannot doubt that this strengthening of the authority of
the leader of the community was the outcome of the conflicts
which that period brought to the Roman community. About the
middle of the century both Marcion and his followers and the
1 Irenaeus, adv. Haer. m, 3, 3.
2 Catalogus Liberianus sxiA Index-, see C. H. Turner in Journ. Theol. Stud.
XVII, 1916, pp. 338-535 H. Lietzmann, Petrus wtd Paulus\ pp. 7-16.
532 the church in THE WEST [chap.
Alexandrian gnostics, especially Valentinus, endeavoured to gain
a footing in Rome and to' win over the Roman community ; but
both assaults were repulsed 'with full and lasting effect.
From the same period we have the account of a visit which
Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, paid to Rome. This was the
occasion of a discussion of the fact that Rome kept no celebration
of the Passover, and Polycarp did not succeed in persuading the
Romans to adopt the custom of Asia Minor in keeping the Pass-
over in association with the death of Christ. But this in no way
disturbed the peaceful relations of the Church with Asia Minor,
and Rome offered no objection when Christians of Asia Minor
who were settled in Rome celebrated the night of the Passover in
their accustomed way. But towards the end of the century the
rapidly prevailing custom of celebrating the resurrection on
Easter Sunday had been adopted in Rome, and now the difference
between the two rites seemed to Victor the bishop intolerable.
It was probably the existence of both customs side by side in
the city of Rome itself that finally determined him to turn against
the church of Asia Minor as a whole^,in order to strike at the root
of the evil. He assured himself of the assent of most of the churches
of the East, and of the church of Gaul, to the practice adopted in
Rome of celebrating Easter on a Sunday, and then demanded of
the church of Asia Minor that they should discontinue their
quartodeciman use, z.e. the commemoration of the death of
Christ on the day of the Jewish Passover.
When the spokesman of the Asiatics, bishop Polycrates of
Ephesus, replied that their custom was in accordance with
apostolic tradition, and found corroboration in pointing to the
graves of the apostles in Asia Minor, Victor still persisted in his
demand and threatened exclusion from the fellowship of the
Church. But it then became clear that he no longer had the other
districts of the Church upon his side. These were not willing to
make the difference over Easter the occasion of a conflict that
would break up the unity of the Church; and Irenaeus protested to
his Roman colleague in strong terms against the overbearingness
of his demand. Thus the Roman claim to extend its authority
over the East as well was rejected; but the defeat had only a
momentary significance. Nevertheless in this matter Rome had in
fact been the representative of the general opinion of the Church
and had intervened as such. Out of this situation sprang new
possibilities for the future.
^ The view of N. Zernov {Church ^uart. Rev. cxvi, 1933, pp.
the controversy concerned only the community in Rome is not here adopted.
XV, III] THE CLAIM OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 533
In what high esteem the Roman church was held in the West
towards the close of the second century we see from the principal
work of Irenaeus himself, who quotes the list of Roman bishops
as exemplifying a line of tradition reaching back to the apostles,
and from this draws the conclusion that undoubtedly the pure
doctrine is to be found in Rome, with which in consequence all
other communities that rest upon apostolic tradition must neces-
sarily agreed. Rome was the principal centre of the West in the
sense also that it was the scene of the theological conflicts that
were brought to the West from the East, always more actively
stirred by speculation. Not only the teaching of Marcion and the
gnostics, but also various views on the nature of the divinity of
Christ taught by representatives of Asia Minor, were put forward
in Rome and for a time gained a not inconsiderable influence.
Those that made most impression were the so-called Monarch-
ians^, who would hear nothing of the learned speculations about
Christ as the Logos. They refused to see in Christ, after the
fashion of the theology of the Apologists, the incarnation of a
second divine being begotten of the Father, the Logos, and
accepted the statement that God was made man in its full and
literal sense. There is only one God and no other divine being
beside him, and this one God appeared on earth in human form as
Jesus Christ, and died for us on the cross, and now works as
holy Spirit in the Christian Church^. That was the popular
theology, in the East no less than in the West, and in a certain
sense it has remained so to the present day.
In Rome the bishops of the period about a.d. 200 were not dis-
inclined to accept this interpretation. But in opposition to this
the representatives of a more learned theology defended the
Logos theology, sanctioned by the Gospel of St John, as the only
possible doctrine; and the Roman presbyter Hippolytus was an
impassioned champion of this point of view. He was opposed,
not only by the Libyan theologian Sabellius, who had come to
Rome, but still more strongly by Callistus, who became bishop on
the death of Zephyrinus, whose supporter and practical admini-
strator he had been. The antagonism rent the Roman community
into two parts, and Hippolytus was elected bishop of the Roman
circle that would have no association with the heterodox. The
theological differences became more acute when Callistus, in his
1 Irenaeus, adv. Haer. iii, 3, 2—3.
^ Tertullian, adv. Prax.-, Hippolytus, Refut. vii, 35-6; ix, 2—3; ix,
7; IX, 10-12; X, 23-4; X, 27; contra Noettm-, Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v, 28.
® Cf. Hippolytus, R^fut. ix, ii, 3,
THE CHURCH IN THE WEST
534
[chap.
treatment of penitents who had been guilty of mortal sin, showed
a leniency which departed definitely from the full rigour of the
Primitive Church. Hippolytus and his party on their side re-
garded themselves as the guardians of Christian austerity.
Thus in Rome there were two communities, each of which
regarded itself as, and called itself, the catholic church^ ; and the
church of Hippolytus stood in opposition to that of Callistus and
maintained this attitude even when Callistus was succeeded by
Urban and Urban by Pontian in the episcopal see. But in the
year 235 the Emperor Maximinus Thrax banished the heads of
both communities, Hippolytus and Pontian, to Sardinia, and
there under pressure of the grave situation a reconciliation seems
to have taken place. Pontian laid down his office to enable the
Romans to elect a successor, and Hippolytus in all probability did
thesame, but renounced his claim to a successor and recommended
his community to join their former opponents. In return, he was
recognized by the other side as possessing the ecclesiastical
dignity of a presbyter. Anteros was elected bishop of the now
united Roman community. Both his predecessors died in exile
and their bodies were brought to Rome by Fabian (236—50) and
there buried with all the honours proper to martyrs^.
Of those who held office in the Roman community Hippolytus
was the last to use the Greek language, and at the same time the
last whose whole theological attitude was rooted in Greek ways of
thought. He also had connections with Alexandria and drew
inspiration from the work of the chronographer Julius Africanus
(p. 477). With him he had in common a special interest in learned
calculations of the duration of the world’s history and of the date
of the Day of Judgment and in employing these to close the door
against over-hasty apocalyptic expectations. This motive, which in
him was combined with a personal predilection for chronological
calculations, produced his Chronicle-, of this only fragments
survive in the original Greek, but in Latin translations and adapta-
tions it exercised a perceptible influence upon historical writing in
the West. From this same favourite pursuit of Hippolytus issued
his Paschal Tables, in which the first serious attempt was made to
calculate the Easter full moon from astronomical data and so to
become independent of the dates fixed by the Jewish Synagogue.
But just as in both these works the intention deserves more
praise than the performance, so too in his exegetical works
Hippolytus shows no evidence of a creative intelligence. For us
^ Hippolytus, Refut. ix, 12, 25; cf. Praef. 6.
^ Liher Pontificalis, xix (Mommsen, p. 24 sq.)-, Catalogus Liberianus {ib.).
XV, III] HIPPOLYTUS 535
the most valuable of his surviving works in the theological field is
his Refutation of the Heresies, because it is based upon first-class
material and provides us with one of the most important sources
for the history of Gnosticism. To this must be added tht Church
preserved in numerous translations, in which Hippolytus,
as a defence against heretics and incompetent bishops — Callistus
is of course intended — draws a detailed picture of church order
according to apostolic tradition : for us, of course, this means a
description of the liturgical customs and ideas and usages of
church life in the community of Hippolytus in Rome about the
year 200. In later days the Roman church forgot Hippolytus
together with his writings and his Church Order. On the other
hand, his writings were read assiduously in the Egyptian church,
and his Church Order even came to be accepted as typical, so
much so that the translations of it into Goptic, Ethiopic, and even
Arabic, influenced decisively the life and order of the Eastern
churches concerned. The consequence was that in the third
century Egypt looked upon her traditional connection with Rome
as vouched for, not through Callistus, but through Hippolytus;
Under the pontificate of Fabian, the Roman see’s growing
sense of its own importance begins to find expression in ways that
we can clearly trace. In the so-called Catacomb of Callistus an
artistically equipped burial chamber was constructed for the
Roman bishops. It was rediscovered in the nineteenth century
and contains the graves, identified by Greek inscriptions, of the
popes of the third century from Pontian (ob. 235) to Eutychian
iob. 282). Under the same Fabian arose the custom of celebrating
the accession of the Roman bishops by an annual commemoration,
and the dates of their accession to office and the days of their
death began to be entered in official lists (see above, p. 531).
Under Fabian too the charitable activity of the clergy was re-
organized and the city of Rome divided into seven relief districts
(regiones) each of which was under one of the seven deacons, who
in turn was provided with a subdeacon as his assistant and pre-
sumptive successor^. Now too the other ‘ minor orders ’ begin to
appear in our sources: the ‘acolytes’ or attendants of the bishop,
the ‘lectors, ’ who in the services read passages from holy scripture
in ceremonial style, and the ‘exorcists’ or those who exorcize
demons, in whom the primitive Christian gift of casting out
devils lived on in after days®. Carthage, which was closely
^ See above, p. 524, n. 3.
® Liber Rontificalis, xxi (Mommsen, p. 27).
® Eusebius, Hist. Ecd, vi, 43, ii.
536 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
connected with Rome, adopted these offices at about the same
time.
From all this we gain the impression that towards the middle of
the third century the Roman community was steadily advancing
in prosperity and solidarity. In this period the basis was laid for
the development of the ecclesiastical ‘parishes’ in Rome and a
number of the oldest ‘Titular-churches’ originated, which became
the centres of the smaller parochial communities scattered through-
out the capital. But the Roman community remained a unity of
which the bishop was the head. When Fabian on 20 January 250
fell a victim to the Decian persecution, it was rightly held in-
expedient at once to choose a successor, and for the time being the
government of the community was left in the hands of the college
of presbyters and deacons. To this period belongs a correspond-
ence with the bishop of Carthage, which gives us the most
valuable insight into the inner history of the Church in the West^.
IV. ROME AND CARTHAGE
The African church was probably founded from Rome. We
have no certain information on the question, but the conjecture of
Roman origin is based upon its geographical situation and can be
supported by a statement of Tertullian’s that for Carthage Rome is
vested with apostolic authority^. But in fact we have no know-
ledge of the early African church, and it is not until about 180
that the earliest expressions of Christian life in Africa become
available. But as a compensation this church emerges into the
light of history with a great personality, and through Tertullian®
it attained a spiritual leadership which it held and increased
until the day when Augustine’s life drew to its close in his epi-
scopal city of Hippo Regius, during its siege by the Vandals,
It must be admitted that the writings of this first of the Latin
Fathers tell us little enough about the rise of the African church
and of all that Christianity did and suffered about the year 200 in
the spiritually most alive of the provinces of the West. But in-
stead we become the more accurately acquainted with the move-
ments of thought amidst which Tertullian lived, and with the
theological dangers which he strove to avert from the church. We
see clearly how all the controversial issues which disturbed the
Roman church after the middle of the second century were also
carried over to Africa. But the writings of Tertullian do not leave
1 Cyprian, Ep. 8, 9, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37.
2 Tertullian, Prawrr. 36.
2 On Tertullian, see also below, pp. $()o°sqq.
XV, IV] THE AFRICAN CHURCH; TERTULLI AN 537
the impression that the problems involved in the conflict of
gnosticism, Marcionism, and Monarchianism with the Logos
theology, problems which originated entirely in Greek thought,
seriously disturbed the African church. Tertullian deals with all
these questions in his own vehement fashion, but nowhere makes
mention of any ecclesiastical counter-measures adopted by his
countrymen. For him it is a purely theoretical conflict, which in
his own fashion he brings to a victorious issue; and as its outcome
he puts forth a series of simple formulations which, taken in
conjunction with the baptismal confession xh& regula fidei^
contain the epitome of the faith. This method was evidently
suited to the sentiments and to the comprehension of African
churchmen, and his formulas of the one Substance and three
Persons of the Trinity, and of the two Substances in Christ^, did
in fact anticipate the final issue of the dogmatic controversies of
the fourth and fifth centuries.
The African church was more vitally affected by the Christian
persecutions, and in his apologetic writings Tertullian not only
combated paganism in theoretical debate but appealed with legal
arguments to the conscience of the State officials and with moral
arguments to his readers among the pagan public. He can write
with flaming eloquence in defence of the standards of Christian
life and can describe with wonderful effect the true sense of
Christian fellowship. Because in his own experience the Christian
religion had brought him deliverance from moral inferiority, he
knew how to present this aspect of Christianity in all its force; but,
on the other hand, he was passionately sensitive when he saw this
aspect of it imperilled in the Church itself.
Thus he went over to Montanism at the time when it was
winning adherents in Africa and became a fanatical protagonist of
the new movement. This in the meantime had lost its original
character and become a movement of reaction in favour of the
ideals of the Primitive Church, combining a tradition of harsh
austerity with the cultivation and recognition of spiritual pro-
phetism in opposition to the new-formed officialdom of the Church.
This brought him into sharp opposition to the native church of
Africa, with its hierarchical organization, and to many customs of
the community, which seemed to him illegitimate concessions to
the world.
But in a vigorous pamphlet he also attacked the Roman bishop
Callistus, on the ground that Callistus wished to allow the restora-
tion of repentant sinners to the Church, even in cases of transgres-
^ Tertullian, adhrPrax. o,, 6, ii.
538 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
sion of the sixth commandment^. It was the same far-sighted
forbearance that in Rome had aroused Hippolytus to battle (p. 5 34),
Tertullian’s moral and enthusiastic radicalism answered to a
widespread temper of mind in Africa and had many adherents,
especially in the country districts and in the province of Numidia.
A century later it gave birth to the storm of Donatism, which
rent the African church for many generations afterwards.
As a figure of church history, the personality of Tertullian is
eclipsed by that of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (see further
below, pp. 600 sgg.). Hewaselectedin 248— 9, but a year later had to
leave the community and remain in hiding in order to escape the
persecution of Decius. During this period he governed his com-
munity by letter and from his hiding-place continued faithfully to
fulfil his duty as a pastor of souls, as even those to whom his
departure had at first given offence had later to bear him witness.
While the persecution was still raging and the number of
those who had proved weak increased, the problem arose of how
the church was to care for the lapsed themselves. Were they, with
the strictness of the Primitive Church, to be abandoned as lost, or
was it possible to point the way to penance and to hold out to
them the hope of being again received into the Church.** The
general temper of the community was in favour of leniency and so
these declared penance to be possible. Thereupon courageous
Christians, who were in prison for the confession they had made
and were awaiting death, began to pronounce absolution. They
felt that as martyrs they were endowed with and authorized by the
holy Spirit, and in virtue of this authority they issued to those of
the lapsed who seemed to them worthy a certificate (libellus pacts)
which secured admission to the fellowship of the Eucharist. And
there were not a few clergy who recognized these certificates
and re-admitted their holders to the Eucharist without special
examination and without the penance of the Church.
Cyprian heard with growing displeasure of this practice of the
confessors, which seemed to him an abuse of martyrdom and to be
undermining the discipline of the Church, which was the concern
of the bishop. Added to this, the confessors in giving their
certificates made no careful examination of individual cases, but
were very generous with their favour, and finally even issued open
certificates without specifying the individual names, and pro-
claimed a general pardon. In this they found support from a
group of Carthaginian presbyters who were hostile to Cyprian.
The bishop corresponded about this question with the Roman
^ Tertullian, d!? i.
XV, iv] CYPRIAN 539
college of presbyters, which, as we have seen, had the management
of affairs while the see was vacant. Agreement was reached with-
out difficulty upon the principle that immediate admission to
communion could only be contemplated for those in danger of
dying. Otherwise, the lapsed were to receive pastoral care, but
they were not to be restored so long as the persecution lasted.
When peace returned, the question of forgiveness and admission to
communion might be settled by episcopal synods : that would then
be the place to examine carefully each individual case and to treat
it according to the gravity of the fault, and there too proper con-
sideration could be given totherecommendationsof the confessors.
This meant, of course, in reality a flat rejection of the claims of
these circles of martyrs. But Cyprian held his position with iron
resolution and was protected by his faithful clergy and supported
by Rome. The opposition then declared war upon him and re-
fused obedience. When, after the death of Decius (a.d. 251), the
projected synods actually met, there too Cyprian was victorious.
His opponents, however, did not submit, but separated themselves
and proclaimed Fortunatus rival bishop of Carthage; we hear of
twenty-five African bishops who joined him, a number the correct-
ness of which Cyprian vigorously disputed. In its actual effect,
the decision of the African synods proved to be more severe than
it had seemed beforehand. The examination of the gravity of the
cases was conducted in bitter earnest, and to those who had offered
sacrifice for any reason short of the direst compulsion restoration
was still denied. When, however, in the spring of a.d. 253 a
new persecution threatened, a judicious leniency was exercised,
and those who hitherto had still been excluded were received
again into the Church in order that the new conflict might be met
by a united Christendom. But the conflict did not come.
Meanwhile, in Rome too the problem of the treatment of the
lapsed had given rise to a serious difference of opinion. During
the vacancy of the see, the highly esteemed presbyter Novatian,
who had also won recognition as a theological writer, had been the
spiritual leader of the church^ ; when, however, the episcopal see
came to be filled, he was not elected, but instead the presbyter
Cornelius (March 251). The election did not meet with unani-
mous approval, and a section of the clergy under the leadership of
Novatian refused to recognize Cornelius: and these opponents
had a considerable section of the community behind them.
Cornelius showed a far-reaching leniency towards the lapsed.
1 Cyprian, Epp. 30 and 36; cf. 55, 5. Novatian was the author of an
influential work de Trinkate. See below, p. 602 sq.
5+0 THE CHURCH IN THE WEST [chap.
Perhaps he had been elected because such aecommodation was
expected from him. At all events, this question was exploited to
deepen the opposition and make it one of principle, and Novatian
placed himself as rival bishop at the head of a congregation which
wished to remain a pure and holy church and not to be polluted
by the membership of apostates from Christ.
Cyprian was painfully surprised by the quarrel over the
election of the bishop in Rome, and delayed his recognition of
Cornelius till he had made more precise enquiries. Then he ranged
himself on the side of Cornelius, although the Novatianists were
developing an active propaganda in Africa also, which was not
without effect. In the East, where the Decian persecution
apparently had less marked an effect on the stability of the com-
munities, Novatian ’s action met with a powerful response, and it
needed the mediating activity of Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria,
to prevent a breach between the Eastern churches and Cornelius^.
The Novatianist churches existed for centuries afterwards as
separated societies and continued as the last survivals of the
mentality of the Primitive Church.
But, as was natural, in the third century the first outburst of
feeling which had often been further provoked by personal an-
tagonism subsided, and many Christians regretted the step they
had taken in the first moments of discontent and returned once
more to the catholic church. Many of them had received baptism
whilst members of the Novatianist community, and in various
districts the problem then arose whether baptism thus administered
outside the catholic church could be recognized as valid. In
Africa, where the question had already been discussed at an earlier
date% a negative answer was given. For Cyprian it was a matter of
course that outside the catholic church there could be no salva-
tion, and consequently no true sacraments, and in this view he was
at one with the majority of the churches, and especially with those
of the East. Pope Stephen of Rome (2 54—6) took the opposite
point of view. The baptism of the Novatianists employed exactly
the same forms as that of the catholic church, and no difference of
doctrine was involved that made it necessary to declare this
baptism invalid. The difference was not one of doctrine but of
discipline, and as the Novatianists also recognized the catholic
baptism — ^which in fact for the most part they had themselves
received — ^there was no ground for rejecting their baptism. When
the Africans, in full consciousness of this difference, brought their
1 Eusebius, Hist. EccL Vi, 45—6; vii, 5, i.
® Cf. Tertullian, de Bapt. 15.
XV, IV] NOVATIAN 541
point of view, already confirmed by a council^, to the notice of the
bishop of Rome, they received from Stephen an unexpectedly
sharp reply®, and laid themselves open to the reproach, un-
warranted though it was, of having introduced an innovation that
was in conflict with tradition. Their protest had no effect upon
Stephen’s attitude; on the contrary, he proceeded to demand that
all the churches should recognize the Roman practice, which could
be traced back to the tradition of Peter. The primacy conferred
upon Peter by Christ Himself involved as its necessary consequence
the subordination of all churches to the Petrine tradition, which
was guarded by Peter’s successor®.
The churches of the East, in which the anti-Roman feeling of
the Novatianist conflict was still stirring, vehemently repudiated
Stephen’s arrogant claim, and their spokesman was Firmilian
of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who wrote a sharp letter main-
taining the apostolic tradition of the Eastern churches against
the Roman thesis A Cyprian, in confirmation of his point of
view, could point to his doctrine of the Church, already fully
developed some years before, which stressed the idea of unity in
the strongest terms. But this unity was based upon the unity and
equality of all bishops, all of whom alike were to be regarded as
the successors of the apostles. When Christ declared the apostle
Peter to be the foundation-stone of the Church, He intended the
prominence thus given to the first apostle as a symbol of unity,
and did not intend to confer on Peter or his successors any legal
pre-eminence®. In face of the attitude of Stephen, the Africans
were provoked into using Tertullian’s ironical formula ‘bishop of
bishops,’ a conception they entirely rejected.
This conflict over heretical baptism, like that over the question
of Easter in earlier days, ended in the rejection of the Roman
claims. Stephen died a martyr’s death on 2 August 256, and
Cyprian followed him on 14 September 258®. The dispute over
heretical baptism lost its acuteness and was forgotten. Forgotten
too in the storms of the period were the Roman claims to primacy.
But the bishops of Rome preserved them faithfully, and awaited
the time that would allow them to revive them once more with
greater prospect of success.
1 Cyprian, Epp. 70, 72. Cf. Sententiae Episcoporum lxxxvii de Haer.
Bapt., the minutes of the later Council of a.d. 256. ® Cyprian, Ep. 74.
3 Cyprian, Epp. 71, 3; 74, i; 75, i?- Eusebius, Hist. Eccl vii, 5, 4-9.
* Cyprian, Ep. 75.
® C34>rian, de catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate', Epp, 45 j 3 (Hartel, p. 602,
18-19); 55, 24 (p. 642, 12-15). ® Cyprian, Ep. 81; Acta Cypriani.
542 the GHURCH in THE WEST [chap.
V. ROME AND ALEXANDRIA
When the relations of the West with the East during the period
of the Early Church are surveyed as awhole,it is noticeable that the
Alexandrian church stood throughout somewhat apart from the
other provinces of the East, while on the other hand it throughout
cultivated intimate relations, theologically and ecclesiastically,
with the imperial city of Rome — ^until in the middle of the fifth
century the policy of Dioscurus and his exorbitant claims to
power severed the link.
Nothing indeed is known of the beginnings of Christianity in
Egypt, and it is in connection with the gnostic movement that we
first hear of notable leaders such as Basilides and Valentinus, who
claimed to represent true Christianity in opposition to the
catholic church. The recently expressed opinion^ that in the
earliest period Christianity in Egypt was predominantly gnostic
and that it was in opposition to gnosticism that catholic com-
munities first came into being has great probability (p. 478). It
then at once becomes clear that none of the Eastern church pro-
vinces rendered this signal service to Egyptian orthodoxy, but
that it was the Roman church that facilitated the formation of
catholic communities among the Alexandrians and consecrated
their first bishop. This supposition provides the simplest explana-
tion of the close relationship that existed between Alexandria and
Rome during the following centuries, and in particular of the
attitude of respectful submission to Roman authority shown by
the bishop of Alexandria, which from time to time unmistakably
appears. Alexandria, towards the end of the second century,
adopted the New Testament Canon of Rome, including the
Roman apocalypse of Hermas, and in the succeeding period
continued to hold the rival bishop of Rome, Hippolytus, together
with his writings, in high regard, whilst the Roman church forgot
both him and his work and retained only the remembrance of
Hippolytus the martyr.
About the middle of the third century an instructive theological
controversy between the two cities took place. Dionysius^, the
active bishop of Alexandria, who played an energetic part in
many spheres, protested strongly and repeatedly against the
propaganda which Sabellius was conducting in Libya and the
Pentapolis on behalf of the Monarchian theology^. And opposi-
tion to Sabellius’ denial of the individual personality of the Logos
^ W. Bauer, Rechtglauhigkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christenthum.
^ See above, p. 4^7* * Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vii, 6.
XV, v] ALEXANDRIA AND ROME 543
led him to maintain the sharply opposed thesis that the Logos was
to be regarded as a creature, and that the Father was related to him
no otherwise than as the husbandman to the vine and the boat-
builder to the boat. He was not co-eternal with the Father, but
first came into being with, and in, time. Persons of repute in
Alexandria took offence at this, and they significantly addressed
their complaints to his namesake, bishop Dionysius of Rome:
among their complaints was one that the Alexandrian pastor did
not ascribe to the Logos the predicate komoousios, a designation
which was evidently already widely current, though not yet
sufficiently thought out theologically^.
The bishop of Rome summoned a council to deal with the
Alexandrian petition, and then addressed a treatise to the Alex-
andrian church in which he rejected alike Sabellianism and the
formulas employed by Dionysius of Alexandria, without indeed
mentioning his colleague by name. That he should have ad-
ministered this correction shows clearly that the bishop of Rome
felt that he possessed a special authority in relation to the Egyptian
church, and the effect of his communication shows us that the
bishop of Alexandria also regarded it as a duty to submit himself
with respectful deference to the Roman decision. For he did not
reply, as did the later patriarchs, with vehement opposition, but
published an extensive work in his own defence, which to judge
from outward appearances signified the full withdrawal of his
earlier point of view and assent to the Roman thesis of the eternity
of the Son. In accordance with the Roman communication he
drew a distinction between begetting and creating, and in carefully
qualified sentences even accepted the term homoousios. The out-
come of the affair was significant for Rome as a further step in the
advancement of her power, and for the Church as a whole as a
prelude to the Arian controversy, which in the fourth century was
to do such injury to Christendom. The legend, already found in
the fourth-century ‘ Monarchian ’ prologues to the Gospels^, of
the founding of the Alexandrian see by Mark the disciple of
Peter (i Peter v, 13) is the reflection of the actual relationship
between Alexandria and Rome.
1 Eusebius, iA'rf. EccL vii, 26, i. See C. L. Feltoe, The Letters and
other Remains of Dionysius of Alexandria.
^ Lietzmann, Kleine Texts, i, p. 16, 16.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART
I, FROM SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS TO ELAGABALUS
T he history of art between the accession of Septimius
Severus and the foundation of Constantinople does not appear
as a continuous chain made up of separate links, like that which
ran from the classicism of the Augustan age to the revival of the
Flavian style in the late Antonine era. In this later period, as in
the earlier, West and East, despite all parallelism and interaction,
preserved their own aspect. But the balance between the art-
techniques of the Greek East and the Roman-Celtic West^ dis-
appears once more. Stylistic fashions tend towards extremes and
provoke more hasty and violent reactions. Varying currents flow
side by side or cross and mingle. In the gradual dying fall of
classical antique art fresh themes may be heard which introduce
the late-classicaH and are the prelude of medieval art. The
confusion of political events and of economic conditions is mirrored
to some extent in the art of the day, though this art in other
respects follows its own natural law. In one particular the history
of art shares the fate of contemporary political history: for the
middle part of this period the tradition is more broken than in the
earlier and later parts. It is a period arbitrarily bounded by
political events, but for the historian of art its opening and closing
years mark no epoch : rather they are organically linked with what
was past and what was to come.
The three first decades, including the reigns of Severus,
Caracalla, and Elagabalus, embrace both the zenith and the decline
of that nervous, excitable style which had matured in the late
Antonine age. A change of style, already foreshadowed under
Antoninus Pius, had taken place in the seventies of the second
century when the Roman sentiment, driven underground by
Hadrianic classicism, came to the surface anew. This was a
renaissance of the Flavian style in the strong expressiveness of
which we recognize the first indications of the ‘ late-classical.’ The
column of Marcus Aurelius only reached completion during the
reign of Septimius Severus.
1 Vol. XI, p. 804 sq.
2 The term ‘late-dassical’ is used in, this chapter to represent the terminus
technicus ‘spatantike.’ See below, p. 561.
XVI, i] ANTONINE AND SEVERAN PORTRAITURE 545
This emperor’s portrait consciously and of deliberate purpose
carries on the tradition of typical Antonine Imperial portraiture^.
It does not present the military usurper with African blood in his
veins, but rather the son, fictitious though the adoption was (p. 1 2 ),
of Marcus Aurelius and brother of Commodus. We can, indeed,
recognize individual traits, but they are subordinated to the tradi-
tional impression, which is apparent not only in the almost
identical cut of beard and hair, but also in the air of calm, in the
philosophic clearness of expression and in the character of the
outlines. Private portrait busts doubtless followed the fashions of
the court. Provincial variants of the Imperial portraiture appear
on the Arch of Leptis, and in a head from Ephesus. Thus in Asia
Minor a contemporary sculptor produced the head of a priest
of the imperial cult, perhaps the Sophist Flavius Damianus of
Ephesus, which has a force and expressiveness that heralds the
style of a much later period, that of the fifth century.
A real break with the past in the presentation of the imperial
portrait first becomes apparent with Garacalla®, but this again is
due to his personality. He wished to figure not as the philosopher
regnant, but as the simple soldier. If, despite the complete change
of style, portraits of Commodus and Severus retained some traces
of Hadrianic and Hellenic elements, those of Caracalla, with their
harsh and violent turn of the head and their emphasis on ugly and
plebeian features, seem to stress anew a feeling that is Roman.
One might regard the portrait of Caracalla either as the latest
example of the Antonine style, or as the precursor of the ‘im-
pressionist’ portraiture that the following period was to produce.
Actually it stands between the two, separating them by an isolated
and individual style, the peculiar character of which is not yet
fully appreciated. The wealth of locks that framed the features of
Marcus Aurelius and his successors was represented as a mass
pictorially resolved into light and shade by deep-drilled hollows.
But with the portrait of Severus Alexander there appears a totally
different style, in which the smooth covering of close-fitting hair
is only relieved by short chisel-marks. With Caracalla and his
cousin Elagabalus came first a change of fashion. Caracalla’s
crisp curls are shorter than his father’s: Elagabalus® has lanky
hair. But what is more important is that the shape and definition
of the distinctive plastic forms of hair and beard now come to their
own once more. There were two utterly different ‘pictorial ’ styles :
one of the late Antonine age, the other of the period between
1 Volume of Plates V, i68,i?. ^ li. 168, i,
® Ib. 168, c,d.
546 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
Severus Alexander and Gallienus. These styles were separated by
a short intermediate phase more plastic than either of them.
Was there also in the field of statuary a movement similar to
this temporary revival of sensitiveness to plastic form.? The
theory has been advanced^ that by the beginning of the third
century the production of copies of statues, other than portrait
statues, had already ceased. But the wealth of sculptural decora-
tion found, not only in the Baths of Caracalla, but also within the
hall of the Palaestra attached to the eastern Thermae at Ephesus,
suggest rather that interest in sculpture was still very much alive.
It is improbable that this interest was merely satisfied by the
re-installation of older works of art in new buildings. The colossal
sculptures from the Baths of Caracalla like the Farnese Hercules^
and the group of the Farnese Bull®, are presumably products of
this latest efflorescence of plastic art. It is only in the subsequent
period that we meet with clear indications of the decline of plastic
sensibility.
Roman historical reliefs could be traced back through a long
period of development to two forms differing widely the one from
the other. The one was the political and symbolical relief of monu-
mental character, the style of which, despite all variations of
details, had always been fundamentally classical. The other was the
popular art of historical narrative, the real medium for which was
painting but which had experienced a translation into a plastic
medium on the sculptured bands of the columns of Trajan and
Marcus Aurelius^. On the arches of Titus in Rome and of
Trajan at Beneventiun such popular subjects were relegated to the
narrow friezes. But it can hardly be mere accident that on the
Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus® the monumental reliefs of
classical type were replaced by popular descriptive carvings dis-
played on wide surfaces. There is little doubt that these carvings
are based on the paintings which Severus after his Parthian cam-
paign caused to be exhibited in Rome even before his return®.
The division into several superimposed registers’, the hard but
lively characterization of personages, the composition of the scene
in which the imperator harangues his troops — all these are in the
tradition of the reliefs on the column of Marcus Aurelius, even
though it is improbable that the same hands were at work on both
^ By G. Lippold, Kopien imd Umhildungen griech. Statuen, p. 83.
® Volume of Plates V, ® lb. iyo,h.
* Vol. XI, pp. 789, 7965 Volume of Plates v, 36-40, 84, 106.
® Vol. of Plates V, 172. ® Herodian iii, 9, 12.
^ Vdl. of Plates v, 1 74, a.
XVI, i] HISTORICAL RELIEFS 547
monuments. That Senate and People in setting up the arch should
give the dominant position to these military scenes is clear evidence
of the changed political conditions since the day when the Arch
of Beneventum was built. On the Severan arch there was only
room on the column-bases for reliefs of the high classical style^.
Here there are groups of prisoners whose bearing and move-
ments, flow of draperies, and carefully observed facial charac-
teristics show that these figures are masterpieces which have not
as yet received the appreciation they deserve either in text or
picture. Great art and popular art are here to be seen side by side
no less than in later times reliefs of different periods on the
Arch of Constantine®. The popular art has something of the
untamed quality but also of the strength of the barbarian. One
might almost call it a provincial art within Rome itself.
Both these types of art had still a future before them : the large
reliefs in the related art of third-century sarcophagi®; popular art
in the pagan and Christian reliefs of the fourth century. The
appearance of contemporary historical reliefs of the higher style
is known from an example preserved in the Court of the Palazzo
Sacchetti^, which depicts a seated emperor making proclamations
to the people against an architectural background. It has the
lively excitement of the late Antonine style at its height, and can
hardly be later than the time of Septimius Severus. In contrast
with the reliefs of Marcus Aurelius on the attka of the Arch of
Constantine there is here not only an increased restlessness filling
the whole scene, but it even seems as though some elements of the
popular style had invaded the theme.
Itwasin 203 that the Triumphal Arch was set up in the Roman
Forum; and at about the same time in Septimius’ birthplace,
Leptis Magna, there was built and dedicated on the occasion of
his visit to his African home the Tetrapylon, almost overloaded
with reliefs, which is one of the finest discoveries of the Italian
excavators®. A whole series of crowded scenes have been put
together, depicting battles, cavalry in procession, and, above
all, detailed representations of sacrifices, proclamations, and a
triumphal procession. Comparison with the contemporary reliefs
in Rome produces a problem which is interesting, controversial
and as yet not capable of final solution. The differences between
the two are so great that if one were ignorant of the historical
context one would certainly assign different dates to the tw'o
monuments. It is not merely a matter of the translation of Imperial
^ Volume of Plates Vj 174, ® Ih. 218. ® Ih,
* Ik ® Ik
548 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
Roman prototypes into a provincial style. Provincial styles may,
in certain manifestations of the Primitive, precede the styles of
the more cultured lands on the road to the ‘late-classical’ because,
in the latter, development is arrested by the classical tradition. But
here the whole artistic conception is something wholly different.
The representative element outweighs the narrative to a far greater
extent than on the column of Marcus Aurelius or on the Arch of
Severus at Rome. Figures are forcibly twisted out of the plane
of their action into a rigid frontality. The composition is here
much closer to that of the late-classical period than it is on con-
temporary monuments in Rome.
There was no indigenous tradition of relief-carving in Tri-
poli. Are then the Leptis reliefs examples of the Italic-West
Roman style freed from the constraint of classicism; or are they
influenced by the East, where Parthian painting had already
achieved a like solution of its problems.'* Formerly critics were
too readily disposed to derive from the East all non-classical traits
in Roman art. But in the past fifteen years we have come to see
that numerous late-classical manifestations — expressionism, cen-
tral composition and frontality — had roots of their own in Italian
soil. Their growth was checked by the influence of classical Greek
forms, but every now and again it came through. Nevertheless
the reaction towards this view sometimes goes too far. In a given
period parallelism of feeling also induces a readiness to welcome
alien artistic stimuli. It is scarcely probable that Italic taste
should have found a better scope for self-expression on the soil
of Africa than in the popular art of Rome itself. On the other
hand, it is very possible that the influence of Parthian painting
should have passed, through the intermediary of some place like
Doura, to North Africa. The fresco of the Tribune in Doura^ which
was painted at about the same time, or possibly rather earlier,
supplies the closest parallel to the composition of the reliefs at
Leptis. The stimulus may well have been brought direct by the
Court of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna when they arrived
from the East. It is to be noted, too, that contemporary art in
Asia Minor about the turn of the century bears marked traces of
the influence of Parthian hunting pictures.
The series of known historical reliefs breaks off with the two
great Arches of Severus, beside which must be mentioned the
artistically insignificant Arch of the Silversmiths erected in 204.
It only revives again at the beginning of the fourth century.
Consequently we now lose the sure guidance of that thread which
^ Volume of Plates v, 28, b.
XVI, i] INFLUENCES FROM WITHOUT THE EMPIRE 549
leads from the reliefs of the Ara Pacis through all the changes
of styles up to the Arch of Septimius Severus. Did the pro-
duction of historical reliefs really cease for a whole century, or
are we merely misled by the lack of surviving monuments ? It is,
indeed, hard to believe that this proud tradition of official art
should have been quite extinguished. On the other hand, it
would certainly appear that third-century sarcophagi, by contrast
with those of the second century, acquired a heightened importance
as works of art, and that they to a certain extent took the place of
historical reliefs. Once the evolution of the sarcophagus has been
adequately studied, it may be that this form of art, together with
portraiture, will provide the guiding clue for the history of art
in the third century.
On the sarcophagi it is possible not only to observe the gradual
change of style, but also the vanishing of older themes and the
appearance of fresh ones. A good example of a traditional type
reshaped to the sentiment of a new taste is supplied by the Taverna
bridal-sarcophagus^, the scenes on which are full of heightened
intensity of feeling and of a lively restlessness permeating every
detail. The figures are close-pressed, the gestures are more emo-
tional. In shape the sarcophagus has grown in height.
A predominant subject on sarcophagi of the time of Septimius
Severus is the battle-picture. An earlier generation had employed
the Hellenistic motives of the fights between Greeks and Gauls;
but now, under the influence of the reliefs that commemorated the
victorious campaigns of Marcus Aurelius, a very different type
of presentation depicting a contemporary battle appears, and it
borrows no more than a few of the older motives. The earliest and
most remarkable of these works is in the Terme Museum, a
sarcophagus from the Via Appia probably made in the last years
of Commodus or the first of Septimius Severus. Framed between
groups of captives and underneath the trophy there is set a
crowded, pictorial and stirring battle-scene, in which the bar-
barians collapse under the victorious onset of the Romans. Even
though isolated fugitives or foes trying to ward off attack appear
in the upper rows, yet the composition as a whole is partitioned
into an upper world of the victors and a lower world of the
vanquished.
A series of sarcophagi similar to this were made in the
following decades. At the end of the period under discussion a
new theme appeared which was destined to be more or less the
predominant subject in the next period, the lion-hunt. Up to this
1 Volume of Plates v, 1 76, a.
550 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-GLASSIGAL ART [chap.
time, the Roman passion for the hunt - — Romana had been
shown on sarcophagi in mythological guise by the hunters Hippo-
lytus, Meleager, or Adonis, and these older themes were continued.
But now there is a new creation in the composition of the lion-hunt
which is perhaps dependent on the prototype of some Imperial
monument, perhaps even the sarcophagus of Caracalla, who him-
self, as a new Alexander, ‘contra leonem stetit^.’ A noble, clear
composition appears on a sarcophagus in the Palazzo Mattel in
Rome^ with a few figures of large size which occupy the whole
available space with their movements. Though the technique of
the drill, common in the Severan period for working hair and
mane, is still employed, yet we note in the treatment of the nude,
in drapery, and in locks of hair clearly divided from one another
a thorough tightening-up of plastic form. Here it is evident that
the same change is in progress as that already observed in the
portraits of Caracalla and of Elagabalus. The head of the effigy
on the sarcophagus is still under the influence of Caracalla ’s
Imperial portraiture, and thus this relief may have been carved
about 220. Itmarks the turning-point towards a fresh development.
With the opening of the third century there begins the con-
tinuous evolution of painting in the Christian catacombs of Rome.
This starts, as we should expect, with a pictorial style that corre-
sponds to that of late Antonine and Severan reliefs. The earliest
paintings are in the Lucina vault, the decorative scheme of which,
having a certain architectural solidity, still holds a memory of the
early Antonine style. After these a gradual loosening and deteriora-
tion is perceptible. The illusionistic manner seems to increase, but
to be broken by reactions. As a rule the artistic quality of these
paintings is rather low. Those in the vault of the Aurelii, probably
still of the Severan style®, are, however, more important. Here
there are, besides landscapes and paintings with small figure sub-
jects, some almost monumental figures, each over three feet high,
of eleven apostles or prophets. During Caracalla’s reign there was
probably a break in purely illusionistic art in painting as well as in
sculpture. Perhaps we possess a mere fragment of this inter-
mediate phase in a small piece of fresco in the Baths of Caracalla
which preserves a delicately and cleanly modelled head.
In architecture, as in the other arts, the first decades of the third
century show a belated flowering after the wealth of the Hadrianic
and Antonine periods. The impoverishment of the provinces and
the consequences of social upheavals only began to take effect
1 S.H.A. Carac. 5. 2 Volume of Plates v, 178.
® Ib. 180, a, b.
XVI, i] SARCOPHAGI AND ARCHITECTURE 551
gradually and in varying degrees in the several provinces. In
Greece proper no building of importance appears to have been
erected. The workshops of Athens were kept going by the manu-
facture of copies of statues and of sarcophagi for export. The
flourishing life of Asia Minor was hit more violently by the ravages
of the wars and their consequences. But in Ephesus in the reign
of Severus there was still the wealthy sophist, Flavius Damianus,
who could afford to build a large hall and to erect the new Palaestra
of the Eastern Gymnasium and fill it with costly sculptures.
Moreover, the Baths by the harbour carried on the Ephesian style
of the gymnasium. After this period, however, building activity
in Asia Minor almost ceased until the end of the century.
It is intelligible that in the provinces of Syria and Africa, which
had suffered little from the wars, the zeal for building should
continue from the second century. In Syria this period witnessed
the new buildings of the temple of Juppiter Damascenus and the
completion of the Propylaea at Heliopolis (Baalbek)^. This
kind of activity was still greater in Africa, the province that was
most closely bound to the dynasty. There is only need to mention
the Capitolium (a.d. 208)^ and the Arch of Severus at Lambaesis,
the temple of Minerva at Tebessa, and the triumphal arches set
up for Caracalla, one at Tebessa in 214, the other at Djemila.
But as in Ephesus, so in Syria and Africa, there is an absence of
all architectural novelty. Old plans are completed; new buildings
are erected on traditional lines.
Rome itself, however, became the stage for an architectural
achievement that marked a mighty advance on the work of the
preceding epoch. In the year 191a fire ravaged the city. Septi-
mius Severus and Julia Domna did much to repair the damage.
The Porticus Octavia, the temple of Vesta and the House of the
Vestals were reconstructed, and the Pantheon was repaired.
Severus built additions to the imperial palace on the Palatine
including a new wing. And on the south-west slope of the Palatine
looking towards the Via Appia he constructed the many-storeyed
State building called the Septizonium, the columnar style of which
may owe something to suggestions from Asia Minor. In the
Forum Romanum there still stands the huge and impressive
triumphal arch put up in the year 203 for the Emperor and his
sons®. It is not always that we can, without forcing the evidence,
draw stylistic parallels between architectural compositions and the
arts of sculpture and painting. But the Arch of Severus does fit
perfectly into the picture of the style of the late Antonine period.
^ Volume of Plates V, 182,13. ® Ih. 182, ® Ih. 172.
552 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
In contrast to the classical lines and plastic simplicity of the much
smaller Arch of Titus its architecture seems full of harshness and
discord, and dependent on the picturesque contrasts of light and
shade. A remarkable architect has here exercised his commanding
power to derive new effects from old motives.
Caracalla’s temple of Sarapis and the Sun-temple built by
Elagabalus are entirely, or almost entirely, destroyed. But the
Baths of Caracalla, which were only completed by his successors,
have survived as one of the mightiest ruins in the world^. Their
impressiveness has, incidentally, led to an overestimate of the
achievement of the age. In actual fact they reproduce in all essen-
tials the ground-plan and elevation of their classical prototype,
the Baths of Trajan. The plan is distinguished by an almost
ornamental scheme. The extent to which the wall-decorations
may have supplied novelty, when contrasted with those of the
older Baths, can no longer be known. There seem to have been
some new and notable additions in the construction of ceilings
and of the dome of the calidarium.
If we survey the portraiture, relief-sculpture, painting and
architecture of this period, we get, in spite of certain contradictions
and ups and downs, a consistent picture of a style, already moulded
in previous decades, pursuing its course and moving to its con-
clusion. There is, then, a late Antonine-Severan style occupying
roughly the half-century from a.d. 170 to 220.
11 . FROM SEVERUS ALEXANDER TO THE ACCESSION
OF DIOCLETIAN
Throughout the period of the crisis and disintegration of the
Empire, there can be traced, if only in general outlines, a con-
tinuity of stylistic development. The City of Rome has a more
central significance in the history of art in this period than in
political history. In art the Roman national character had achieved
a strength and activity which enabled it to assimilate to itself the
foreign element that entered it, and to carry on a specifically
Roman tradition into late-classical art.
Not more than six or eight years separate the portraits of
Elagabalus from those of Severus Alexander®. A comparison of
the likenesses of these two cousins reveals a complete change in
the fashion of portraiture which dominates the decades that follow.
^ See Plan 2 facing p. 570; Volume of Plates v, 1 84, a, b.
® Volume of Plates V, l68, c, \ 26 ,a,b.
XVI, II] A NEW FASHION OF PORTRAITURE 553
It is marked most strongly by the technical representation of the
hair. The impression made by an Antonine portrait depended
primarily on the contrast between the shape of the face and the
luxuriant mass of waving locks. The portrait of Elagabalus still
had strands of hair plastically rounded and clearly distinguished.
But now the hair flattens down into a cap barely separated from
the face, only distinguished from it by its smoothness and colour.
The firm plastic modelling of the features gives place to a soft
modulation of the surface. We can trace a development of this
Style of portraiture from Maximinus and Gordian Ill^to Philip the
Arabian. The slight plastic shaping of the hair that had at first
been retained gradually disappears completely. The skull-cap of
hair is broken by chisel-marks which at first follow the lines of the
locks, though presently these too vanish. There is an attempt to
recapture, in the manner of the ancient Roman traditional portrait,
the momentary and personal element by holding and emphasizing
characteristic forms, and there is success in expressing both the
precocityin the features of the youthful Gordian and the barbarism
in Maximinus and Philip. In classical art also impressionism and
expressionism are but little apart. About the middle of the century
the portrait of Decius^ shows certain stylized mannerisms which
would have led straight on to the portrait of Probus and ‘ late-
classical ’ art, but for the fact that this tendency was thrust aside
for several decades by a powerful reaction. But before we consider
this we must glance at some of the surviving monuments of the
first thirty years of this period.
The changes in coiffure and portraiture certainly represent a
reaction against the Antonine and Severan concepts of a portrait,
and in particular a reaction of the Roman spirit against the
Hadrianic Hellenic traditions employed for the likenesses of the
Antonine Emperors. The more homely and human character of
the new style, which renounced all display of pomp, has occasionally
led to the belief that this restrained art replaced the baroque art
of the Severan age. But we should form an entirely false picture
of our period were we to base our conclusions on portraiture alone.
Between about 225 and 230, judging from the portrait head
upon it, the great Ludovisi battle-sarcophagus was made®. To this
work the term baroque can be applied with more justification than
to any other ancient work of art, though admittedly it is a style
by no means identical with the baroque of more modern art. But
it is at the same time a work in which there appear the complexity
and the twofold tendencies of the day. As far as its artistic
1 Volume of Plates V, i86,f. ^ lb. 186,1;/. ® Ib. 188.
554 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
significancegoes, it is a work of the first rank presenting the highest
achievement of the time. When it is compared with the battle-
sarcophagus from the Via Appia made a generation earlier (p, 549)
a remarkable contrast is apparent. The composition taken over
from the other has been clothed in entirely new forms. The first
general impression of a baroque effect is produced by the larger
size of sarcophagus and figures, by their close compression, and
by the emotional expression that reaches in the faces of the mor-
tally wounded an intensity surpassing anything previous in ancient
art, for it recalls the work of the medieval and the baroque
sculptor. But in contrast to the baroque this relief is kept firmly
within the bounds of its frame and its front plane. The plastic
sharpness of each single shape carries on the development of the
art which we first met on the Mattei sarcophagus with the lion-
hunt. But, though this plastic treatment is still purely classical,
we seem to perceive in the pose and movement of each figure a
certain lack of sure feeling for the organic growth and rhythm
of the whole which attests a falling off in plastic sensibility.
The real difference between the battle-sarcophagi and their
predecessors lies in composition. The number of figures is now
small. Their relation to space and depth is altered. On both these
sarcophagi the balance of the composition has been planned down
to the smallest detail. But while on the older example groups are
combined, figures recede in depth, and leave room between one
another, there appears on the Ludovisi sarcophagus a whole crowd
of figures filling the plane out evenly, for the figures that are
behind stand out in the same relief as those in front or bend
forward their heads to the front plane of the picture. Thus we get,
despite the plasticity of the single figures, that carpet-like effect
which A. Riegl has brought out in his analysis of a contemporary
sarcophagus with Amazons^. Indeed, this effect must have been
intensified when the gilding on the men’s hair and horses’ manes
was visible. Emotion and rigidity are here combined in peculiar
guise. The composition and construction of the design mark a
definite step in the direction of the late-classicalj while the
modelling of individual figures harks back to classical art. In the
intellectual conception of victory the sarcophagus also parts com-
pany with its prototype and tends towards the late-classical. The
victorious general is no longer fighting but triumphant, and turns
from the turmoil of battle towards the spectator, claiming worship.
The subsidiary figures are noticeably smaller in size, an anticipa-
^ In SpStrSmische Kmstindustrie (1927 reprint), p. 139 sq.
XVI, Ii] THE BATTLE-SARCOPHAGI 555
tion of the later practice of representing personages in sizes that
correspond to their relative importance.
The emotional temperament of the age showed a preference for
hunting-scenes or fighting Amazons, and instilled an intense rest-
lessness into other subjects like representations of the Thiasos or
of sea-pieces. Quiet, simple portrait-busts are set in the midst of
these reliefs on the sarcophagi to form a strange but quite inten-
tional contrast with the movement, the very wildness of the reliefs.
On the hunt-sarcophagi may be seen how the treatment of hair
and garments became more full of movement between 230 and
250. Locks of hair wind about like snakes and end by looking like
flickering flames. Just before the mid-century they again lose their
plastic definition and become more pictorial. Facial expression
grows even more exaggerated. The climax of this ‘baroque’
development is reached in works like the so-called sarcophagus
of Balbinus in Copenhagen^ which must be dated to about
A.D. 250. _
Was this baroque-like tendency confined to Rome, or did it
also permeate the rest of the ancient world ? We can recognize its
presence on Attic sarcophagi in the evolution of what are mis-
named Graeco-Roman examples. On one remarkable piece, the
Achilles-sarcophagus of the Capitoline Museum® (c. 240 to 245),
we encounter this baroque style with its wealth of tightly packed
figures. Riegl recognized in this relief-work the true parallel to
the sarcophagi made in the Capital®. But neither the violence of
emotional expression nor the loosening of the plastic form go
nearly as far as they do in Rome. Down to the very latest of their
series the Attic sarcophagi retain something of the classical Attic
manner. In conformity with this we find the portraits of the dead
upon the lids also follow a Greek tradition. Nearer to a baroque
style are the column-sarcophagi from Asia Minor, not only in their
structure but also in the movement of their figures and the rest-
lessness of their composition. The large Sidamara coffin in Istambul
is of this class and period^. The latest stage appears on the Mattel
Muses-sarcophagus® in Rome which belongs to the second half
of the third century. But sarcophagi from the Eastern provinces
never approached the richness of those of Rome either in their
wealth of subject matter or in their lively juxtaposition of varying
and various styles. After the reign of Caracalla the East con-
spicuously lagged behind Rome in intensity of artistic creation.
^ Volume of Plates V, 190, ^ 7 ,
2 Ib. 192,1?. ® Op.cit.p. 140.
* Volume of Plates V, 192, A ® Ib. 192, f.
556 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
On the other hand we find at this time a highly original mani-
festation in the Celtic-Germanic Marches associated with the
evolution of the grave-monuments of Treves and its neighbour-
hood. The tombs with their multiplication of architectural motives
and their excess of ornament take on fantastic shapes. The use
of soft sandstone induced the employment of a pictorial treatment
of the material. While in the East luminous surfaces and dark
hollows were separated by ridges sharp as knives, here softly
flowing transitions moved from convex high lights to deep shadows.
Brilliant characterization distinguishes the types of peasants and
boatmen^. No provincial art of the third century is equal to this
in independence and creative power. Here is evidence of artistic
gifts rooted in the unspoilt folk of the countryside. But the line
of development ran parallel to the Roman and reached its climax
about the mid-century or shortly after. So it fitted into the wide
context that extended from Asia Minor to the Rhine frontier.
The advance of this pictorial baroque element to an extreme
about the middle of the century makes the marked reaction of the
‘Gallienic renaissance’ comprehensible. This was first observed
in portraiture, but manifests itself with equal distinctness in reliefs
at Rome itself. Plotinus and Gallienus, the friendship between
emperor and philosopher, these symbolize the spirit of the age.
From the chaotic turmoils of the time the soul sought refuge in
the peace of mystery religions and of Neoplatonism (p. i88). Art
shows us that this longing finds its satisfaction not by ecstatic
moods but by calm clarity.
In the portrait of Gallienus^ there are apparent two elements
both striving to recover something of the older classical spirit.
The one, a Roman element, links itself to Augustan and Claudian
prototypes; the other tries to recover the Greek portrait technique
of the Hadrianic and Antonine period. The neo-Augustan style
is also met with in certain Roman portraits of private personages.
This reversal in style extends beyond the immediate circle of
Gallienus, who was himself but the representative of a spiritual
movement that touched the whole Roman Empire. Yet for all their
parallelism each local circle of culture went on its way. Asia Minor
and Greece had each its own special style for portraiture linked
on to its own local prototypes. The finest gold coins of Postumus
minted at Lugdunum show us, even more decisively than the bust
of Gallienus, the ideal type of the period distinguished by philo-
sopher’s beard and Greek classic forms®. And the successors of
Postumus down to Tetricus retained this fashion and form. It is
^ Volume of Plates v, 194. ^ Ib. i()6,a,b. ^ Ib. 214, c; 238,0.
XVI, Ii] THE ‘ GALLIENIC RENAISSANCE ’ 557
no mere chance that the portrait of Postumus made in Gaul is
founded on Greek rather than Roman models. In Rome itself,
•which was always ready to take up anything fresh, we find Roman
and Greek styles side by side with a continuation of the portraiture
fashionable in the forties of the third century.
In the list of subjects for sarcophagi lion-hunts and fighting
Amazons no longer predominate, for preference is now given to
scenes that depict the deceased, male or female, in the company
of philosophers, or Muses, or both. The lion-hunt, however,
remains a popular theme in the second half of the century, but
only on works of inferior quality, and it sometimes, significantly
enough, appears on the back panels of philosopher-sarcophagi.
There is a sarcophagus in the Museo Torlonia^ made c. 250-60
that depicts the dead man and his wife as seventh Sage and ninth
Muse in a gathering of the Muses and Sages. Single motives like
the centre group and the corresponding figures of seated philo-
sophers are probably indebted to the Asia Minor style; but the
composition as a whole follows the Roman tradition. In the restless
ragged beards and locks there remains an after-effect of the restless
style of the pre'vious period. Otherwise, however, the tranquil
shapes, the compact outlines of heads, the simplified folds fit in
with the changed mood which seeks to replace the dramatic and
the emotional by the solemn calm of an existence steeped in
philosophy and art. This mental change of attitude corresponds
to the altered situation of the whole age. And in like fashion the
philosopher-sarcophagi of Rome itself, made between 250 and
270, represent in particular the impact on Rome of a flourishing
philosophy — ^notably that of Plotinus and his disciples. In such
circumstances the oldest Christian carved sarcophagi could come
into existence, for they too could depict the dead man as sage and
teacher amid symbolic figures. There are the Roman sarcophagus
from the Via Salaria^ and another from La Gayole, the latter made,
like the portraits of Gallic emperors, under the influence of Greek
forms. It is significant that the first Christian carved sarcophagi
were made in the West, where their future was also to lie.
All trace of nervous unrest has vanished on the magnificent
fragment of a philosopher-sarcophagus in the Lateran®. Here is
a philosopher giving instruction from a scroll unrolled wide open
and surrounded not only by two listening women, one of whom
holds the scroll — symbol of learning — but by other philosophers
who turn their heads to converse with other persons now missing.
There is no proof that this was the coffin of Plotinus for it was
^ Volume of Plates V, igS,a. ^ lb. ig%,b. ® Ib. 200.
558 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
probably made in the sixties; but the master of Neoplatonism
might well have been depicted in this atmosphei-e of elevated
solemnity. The head of the central figure is inspired by this same
lofty mood. The fashion of his hairdressing is in the style of the
second quarter of the century.
Through all these contrasts subsisting between the sarcophagi
of the lion-hunt period and of the philosopher period we can still
trace a straight line of evolution leading in the direction of late-
classical art; and we can see its negative no less than its positive
sides. The feeling for the organic structure of the figure grows
steadily weaker. Composition in relief, though occasionally
chequered by reminiscences of the classical style, carries on the
form typified by the great Ludovisi battle-sarcophagus. Cen-
tralized composition grows ever more popular. Along with this
the tendency increases for a turning of figures and whole scenes
toward ffontality. A medallion of Severus Alexander shows a
quadriga for the first time in frontal view, though the figures in
the chariot still turn sideways. Coins of Postumus give the
Imperial portrait almost full-face, and, what is still more important,
the scene of an Imperial allocution in a centralized symmetrical
composition^. A turning-point of the utmost significance for the
history of art is marked by the frontal view of the reading philo-
sopher of the Lateran sarcophagus. For in the motive of the seated
figure we have here a dividing line between antiquity and the
medieval.
In classical reliefs, as in those of the more ancient East, the
ceremonial presentation of a figure enthroned in the foreground
was avoided because it was out of harmony with the whole spirit
of the relief of antiquity. But in Italy after the first century of the
Principate we can observe a movement towards the presentation
of a frontal view. For its realization, however, the true feeling for
plastic form had to be so far extinguished that men were no longer
disturbed by the contradiction between a foreshortened thigh and
its actual appearance in light and shade. Fi-om this point onwards
relief moves away from sculpture in the round and assimilates
itself to drawing.
If the new dating given to a rock-carving at Shapur, assigning
it to the reign of Shapur I, is correct, then it seems that a frontal
enthroned figure of a ruler in the middle of a centralized com-
position appears for the first time in Mesopotamian art at about
the same period. It is strange that we do not find it sooner in
Parthian and Sassanian art, which is after all not plastic in character
^ nf" PJafPQ V OJA r n
XVI, Ii] SASSANIAN AND ROMAN ART 559
but based on painting and relief work^. Have we here a case of
parallel development or one of mutual influence ? To what extent
can the existence of artistic interrelations be proved? Recent
research has been successful in tracing the origins of the late-
classical in Classical art and the origins of Sassanian in Parthian
art. A whole series of apparent correspondences, in which we were
at one time inclined to see an orientalization of classical art, appear
now rather as converging manifestations. But the closer these
lines of development approach one another, the stronger grows the
possibility that occasional sparks of inspiration leap from one to
the other. The reliefs commemorating Shapur’s victory and his
capture of Valerian^ are influenced by Roman victory-reliefs. On
the other hand the concept of the ruler in the late-classical period
and its outward manifestations have a strong Oriental tinge.
Shapur’s reliefmight have been influenced by a Valerian prototype.
Yet the influence might equally have been in the opposite direction.
The decisive step, so far as Rome was concerned, may well have
been taken on some Imperial triumphal relief or sarcophagus.
More interesting even than the similarity in frontality between
the reliefs of Shapur and the Lateran sarcophagus is the difference
in their technique. In its counterpoise the form of seated figure
of the Graeco-Roman philosopher is quite classical; in its sym-
metry of widespread legs and in the stiffness of its body the figure
of the Sassanian king is thoroughly Oriental. The Roman proto-
type continues almost unchanged through a series of imperial and
divine figures into the Middle Ages, when it comes into conflict
with the Oriental motive that has likewise been carried on by later
Sassanian and then by Byzantine art.
A somewhat later Roman sarcophagus®, made about 270 to
275, has in the centre the old-fashioned group of men clasping
hands {desctrarum iunctio) and on the right and left of this group
symbolical figures referring to the office of the deceased, who was
an official of the Annona. Though it is still in high relief the
unplastic hardening of the figures is here more exaggerated. All
the more moving is the inner suffering which appears on the man’s
face and seems to portray the depth of his sensitiveness which still
lives through the stiffening forms. In its general form this portrait
head belongs to the end of the ‘Gallienic renaissance.’ And in
heads which belong either to the end of this period or to the
transition towards the next there now appears a definite tide of
expressionism produced by stressing and exaggerating the charac-
^ See above, p. 124.
^ Volume of Plates V, 148. ® Ih^ 202.
56 o THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSIGAL ART [chap.
teristic features of the face. It was the current that had set in with
the portrait of Decius, but had been stayed awhile by the classical
reaction.
In the paintings of the Catacombs we may perhaps perceive
about the middle of the century an increased use of the illusionistic
manner in the production of figures and a loosening in decorative
matter. Then comes a tendency to a firmer drawing of figure-
subjects. But the style of the age of Gallienus is not as yet really
to be grasped. Popular paintings of campaigns and hunting-scenes
continued to be turned out, as we learn from a few chance re-
ferences. After his German victories Maximinus not only sent a
written report to the Senate and People, but had pictures painted
‘ut erat bellum ipsum gestum,’ and had them set up in front of
the Curia ‘ut facta eius pictura loqueretur^.’ Gordian organized
3 . silva, a hunt for which the whole Circus was transformed into
a forest, and this was depicted on a frieze on which no fewer than
1320 animals were painted. The baroque zeal for huge masses
could find freer scope in painting than in carved reliefs. The
painted records, to which texts refer, of the new-fashioned
games given by Cams, Carinus, and Numerianus in the Circus
must likewise have been large and packed with figures. From this
popular painting the tradition of art in the City of Rome derives
much of its power.
A peculiar contrast is provided by the aristocratic art of portraits
in miniature, worked out in gold-leaf upon glass^. Its earliest
examples belong to the period from a.d. 230 to 250. It can hardly
be an accident that the art of miniatures reaches its height at the
moment in which sculpture in the grand style declines. It is the
way of art on the small scale to attain its zenith at just such times.
These portraits in gold on glass initiate a development which
slowly advances towards the end of the fourth century and leads
to the efflorescence of late-classical illumination, ivory-carving and
embossed metal-work.
We know least of all of the architecture of this period. This is
certainly not due to the accident of destruction, but to the fact that
economic decline has a greater effect on architecture than on
other arts. There were now none of those private benefactors who
played so large a part in encouraging building during the second
century. Where there are large buildings, they are almost always
associated with some emperor. In Africa, which still prospered
at this period, there was built in a.d. 229 a temple at Djemila
dedicated to the Gens Septimia. An inscription records the
^ S.H.A. Max, duo, 12, 10. ® Volume of Plates v, 204, a, b.
XVI, m] ARCHITECTURE 561
erection by Gordian III of a palace with adjoining baths at
Volubilis in Morocco. It was probably also at this time that the
huge amphitheatre of El Djem (Thysdrus), where Gordian I was
proclaimed emperor, was built^. If the circular temple at Helio-
polis® is to be associated with Philip the Arabian, it would certainly
fit in with the baroque mood of the day. In and near Rome rose
some considerable imperial buildings, like the Villa of Gordian.
In these and certain circular tomb buildings we see that the prob-
lem of vaulting was what interested the architects of the time.
Only one building is comparatively well preserved, the so-called
temple of Minerva Medica®, now held to be a Nymphaeum or part
of a block of Thermae of about a.d. 260. The dome rests on a
decagonal substructure, from the lower part of which apses curve
out between supporting piers, while the upper part is broken by
windows. Ideas attempted in Hadrian’s Villa are here carried
through. It was not only the solution of the technical problem
that was bold and new, but also the widening and differentiating
of the interior spaces, and the complicated jointing of the exterior.
This single building proves that Roman architecture was still full
of ideas.
III. FROM DIOCLETIAN TO THE FOUNDING
OF CONSTANTINOPLE
In the history of art the term late-classical has been adopted
for the centuries that follow the true classical age. This term is
more comprehensive, and therefore more suitable, than ‘late-
Roman ’ which Riegl employed in his work which laid the founda-
tions for the study of this period. The late-classical is something
more than a phase in the transition from the ancient to the medieval
world. Not only on account of its long duration, but also by reason
of its own artistic achievement, it must be classed as a third phase
of ancient art following on the Greek and the Roman phases.
V 7 here are we to place its beginning and its end ? Is an essential
unity to be found amid the diversity of its manifestations.'*
That this phase is still a part of ancient art is clear from the fact
that its conclusion is more definitely detached from medieval art
than is its beginning from the preceding classical art. In Italy jt
does not come to an end with the fall of the Western Empire in
A.D, 476, but with the great invasion of the Lxsmbards in 568. The
Ostrogothic period in Italy is the age of the last bloom of late-
A Volume of Plates V, 206, <?. ® Il>- 20(>,b. ® lb. 206, c.
36
C.A.H. XU
562 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
classical art. In the Eastern Empire the more ^adual decline
extends in part to the period of the Slavonic invasions during the
second half of the sixth century, in part to that of the victories of
the Arabs in the following century. In the Byzantine Empire a
tradition was even retained up to the period of revival (ninth and
tenth centuries). The flower of the art, however, came to an end in
the East almost at the same time as in the West, after the death
of Justinian. The part taken by national energy in the achieve-
ments of the three centuries is diverse. Up to the end of the
fourth century the greater and more fruitful artistic production
came from Italy, after that from Asia Minor and Byzantium. The
part played by barbarian influence is not easy to estimate. We
have now to reckon more than in previous periods with the
activities of travelling artists and of workshops.
The beginning of late-classical art is fixed differently ac-
cording to the different divisions of time favoured by the several
studies that are concerned with it. Those scholars who write of
‘L’art Byzantin ’ — ^aterm more appropriate to the middle and late
Byzantine epochs — mark the beginning by the foundation of
Constantinople, which is for the art-historian of no significance
as an epoch. Those concerned with Christian archaeology choose
the date which is most momentous for Church history, either that
of the Edict of Milan in 313, or the victory at the Milvian
Bridge in 312. Both are too late and, indeed, the second is im-
mediately followed by the earliest of those renaissance movements
which are just as characteristic of the rhythm of the late-classical
period as of the classical age, and are perhaps even more impres-
sive. If we select the accession of Diocletian to mark the beginning
of the late-classical, this is because it amounts to an acknowledg-
ment that the spirit of the Dominus is the spirit permeating the
art, in contrast to that of the classical ages. The date is no more
than a symbol. In actual fact the change and the transition cover
the period from a.d. 275 to 300.
An attempt to describe in brief the essence of late-classical
art must confine itself to touching on its most important features.
There appear side by side a change in pure artistic feeling and a
change in the spiritual relationship between spectator and work
of art. What is of the most decisive significance is the cessation
of sculpture in the round, which had occupied the central point
in Greek art, but which had been forced on the Romans by the
power of Greek tradition, foreign though it actually was to their
inner sentiment. It may be that the type of the commemorative
statue, and especially of the figure of the emperor, was retained
XVI, III] TRANSITION TO THE ‘LATE-CLASSICAL’ 563
till the very end of the period. But statues of gods disappear, and
the manufacture of copies of Greek masterpieces comes to an end.
Relief -work grows ever closer to painting. In the earliest classical
age the statue of the god served the beholder for prayer, the portrait
statue expressed veneration, while votive sculpture, reliefs and
paintings stood for the participation of a spectator in a play. But
prayers cease to be made to statues of the gods. Veneration
of the portrait statue rises to virtual worship. The function
of painting and relief is no longer to narrate but to preach;
their appeal is no longer to a spectator but to a congregation
of the faithful. This alteration of spiritual and emotional values
leads to a form that gives expression to this new exaltation.
This has frequently been defined by the word ‘transcendentalism’;
but it must be borne in mind that the uplifting reality in late-
classical art is something fundamentally different from the other-
worldliness of medieval art.
This transcendentalism, if we use the concept in this narrowed
sense, or this expressionism, is the central factor of late-classical
art, but it has to adjust itself to two other and quite different forces.
One of these is a hard realism, which derives from unplumbed
depths of popular feeling. In Rome itself new and vigorous sap
flows from this realism into late-classical art. Another type of
realism, nourished on different spiritual forces, was later on to
influence Asiatic portraiture in the fifth century. The second force
is the might of classical art standing, as it were, before the eyes of
the late-classical in almost undiminished splendour. This was
the cause of repeated renaissances which harked back to classical
Greek or classicizing Roman prototypes. Out of the struggle of
these three forces there grew the manifold tendencies, flowing,
following, merging into one another in late-classical art.
The foundations of the late-classical manner may be recog-
nized increasingly in the preceding centuries, and especially so in
Italy on those monuments in which a Roman and unclassical
feeling is expressed. Examples of this occur in Italian provincial
art of the first century, and afterwards in historical reliefs of the
second century, notably those of the Column of Marcus Aurelius.
Then, with the period starting about 222, there begins, as we have
seen, the immediate precursors of the late-classical.
Coins of the seventies of the third century^ show that in por-
traiture the expressionist tendency — temporarily submerged by
the classical phase of Gallienus’ reign — ^has recovered. This had
^ Volume of Plates v, 212, 214.
36-2
564 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-GLASSIGAL ART [chap.
already appeared with the portraiture of Decius. The tendency to
firontality, begun under Severus Alexander and carried on under
Postunaus, is continued on medallions of Probus, for it is there in
the frontal composition of the adlocutio scene. And it is the por-
traits of Probus^, together with contemporary heads of private
personages®, that carry along the features of late-classical art.
In the representation of the hair the tradition, never quite inter-
rupted, of the second quarter of the century prevails again. In the
face there is emphasis on the harmony of those features that
determine the spiritual expression, like eyes, nose, and mouth, as
contrasted with the mere auxiliary features. In the time of Dio-
cletian® and the Tetrarchy there appears in the face— now stylized
beyond any natural shape for the sake of expressive strength —
a kind of native primitiveness derived from the coarser popular
art which was developing at this time in Roman reliefs. The head
of the colossal figure of Constantine from the Basilica in the Forum^,
with its new dynamic simplification that enhances the strength
of expression, and its new exaggeration of the features, marks
the creation of a new ideal of the Ruler. Despite several classicizing
interludes, this head had a marked influence on subsequent
Imperial portraiture.
The change of period is very clearly marked in the history
of the relief. In the East, Syria and Alexandria had never shown
much liking for this type of art. But Asia Minor and Greece
possessed in their monumental masons’ yards a rich supply of
reliefs which, through the export of sarcophagi, were regularly
influencing the West. In the last decades of the third century this
trade died out. A few masons wandered over to Italy. In contrast
to Rome and the Western provinces, Asia Minor and Greece
were poor in reliefs during the ‘late-classical’ period. The few
sarcophagi with relief-decorations are isolated pieces. Economic
stress and disorganization of export trade certainly contributed to
this state of affairs, but were hardly its sole cause. There was here
afoot a change in taste that was perhaps already a presage of the
much stronger divergence to come between Eastern and Western
Europe in the Middle Ages.
Rome, North Italy, and Gaul were, up to the end of the fourth
century, the regions responsible for an abundant production of
sarcophagi ornamented with reliefs. In Ravenna and in Aquitania
this tradition carried through into the sixth century. The actual
transition happens in Rome itself. The old themes and subjects —
1 Volume of Plates v, 208, a. ^ Ib. 208, b, d.
3 lb. 208, c. * Ik
XVI, m] THE LATER SARCOPHAGI , 565
mythological scenes and lion-hunts — so far as they can be assigned
with tolerable certainty to this period — show agrowing hardness of
style and a falling-olF in artistic merit. An example is the Adonis-
sarcophagus in the Lateran, apparently made shortly before the
reliefs of Constantine’s Arch. To the last decades of the third
century belongs the Borghese Phaeton-sarcophagus^, on which
the type of composition planned for the great Ludovisi battle-
sarcophagus has degenerated into stiff schematization. On Roman-
made sarcophagi the Asiatic type of figure on the lid now begins
to appear more frequently. Perhaps this is due to the arrival from
Asia Minor of masons, whose hands also seem to betray themselves
in the composition and style of certain Hip poly tus-sarcophagi in
Split and in Rome.
Besides this dying classical style we are aware of the beginnings
of a new movement that looks to the future. It is noteworthy that
it appears in association with new themes. Subjects which at
first only fit spaces on the lids of relief-sarcophagi presently begin
to appear on the fronts. They are derived from observation of
daily life, shepherds and flocks, feasts, a money-changer’s office,
or the payment of rent^. At the same time the Christian sarcophagi
begin to appear with their single scenes, Jonah and the whale, the
Good Shepherd, and the Eucharist, motives that were to acquire
tremendous importance in the following century first in Rome and
then in Gaul. Shortly before the Arch of Constantine there were
produced the sarcophagi with only one row of figures that depict
scenes from the life of Christ and Peter®. Some have ascribed this
crude, popular, narrative, realistic art to an influx of provincials.
But the provinces show no close antecedents. It is rather due to the
fact that, as the pressure of the old classical tradition relaxes, the
popular undercurrent, the provincial art of Rome itself, which has
already been discerned in previous centuries, now comes to the
surface. In painting its tradition had been uninterrupted since
Republican days. The flower of Christian relief carving in the
late-classical West is indebted for its rise to the union of the
new, creative, Christian spirit with the related and still unex-
hausted Roman popular art. Its origins lie in Rome.
On reliefs of this character, made between 280 and 310, the
use of the drill for the hair, eyes, nose, mouth, and drapery
gradually becomes an extreme mannerism. It is therefore under-
standable that after the end of the third century there followed
a revulsion from this style, causing the almost complete abandon-
ment of the drill. It is, moreover, possible that this was helped
1 Volume of Plates V, 216, «. ® ® Ik
566 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSrCAL ART [chap.
by the importation, about this time, from Alexandria of sculptures
in porphyry, the almost peasant-like and provincial style of which
was congenial to contemporary Roman sentiment. This change
in technique is carried through within the popular realistic move-
ment and almost reaches its completion with the contemporary
sculptural decoration of the Arch of Constantine.
We can see both techniques side by side employed by two
sculptors in the Roman Forum on the Decennalia base which is
probably to be assigned to a.d. 303—4. This is simply a degenerate
descendant of the politico-religious type of relief of an earlier day.
The Arch of Galerius at Salonica with its wealth of ornament is
of greater artistic significance. Though in the general building-up
of its reliefs, as well as in some of the subject matter, there are
perhaps Oriental influences derived from the repertoire of Sass-
anian art^, the style as a whole is based on the popular historical
relief, or on the historical painting of Rome. Moreover, the two
opposing techniques, one employing, the other rejecting, the use
of the drill, are again present side by side. But in certain details
of the plastic work we can still perceive a last echo of Greek relief-
work, perhaps introduced by assistant masons who still had some
connection with the latest sarcophagus factories of Greece.
Popular Roman relief faced a task of historical importance in the
decoration of the Arch of Constantine in 3 1 5^. This arch is a mile-
stone in the history of art. The use of the drill has vanished from
the narrow reliefs over the side arches, and its last traces may be
observed in the reliefs of the column-bases. In the scenes of the
triumphal procession, and especially in those of the siege of Rome
and the victory on the Milvian Bridge there is all the rough force-
fulness of popular art®. The Emperor over life-size, the merciless
character of the scene of victory, these are Roman features the
gradual growth of which can be watched from the beginning of the
second century. Here are no worn-out motives deriving from a long
tradition. The victorious soldiers are thrusting with convincing
force, as do the hunters on some hunt-sarcophagi of a new type
invented about this period. In contrast to these chronicle-like
pictures are the static ceremonial scenes^ with their centralized
and frontal compositions corresponding to the increase of similar
subjects and designs on medallions of the age of Constantine. In
the East rows of identical figures were employed for such cere-
monial subjects to increase the impressive effect; here in the West
the symmetrical composition is enlivened by many new and freshly
^ Volume of Plates V, 150, A ^ lb 218.
® lb. 220, a, h. ® lb. 220, c, d.
XVI, III] THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE 567
observed touches of realism, episodes, national types, national
costumes and the like. These reliefs are not masterpieces of
great art, but they are instinct with a vigour that was to guarantee
the Roman relief a long life when, after the foundation of Con-
stantinople and the removal of the Court, a strong national
consciousness grew up in Rome and Italy.
The architectural structure of the Arch of Constantine^, in
contrast to that of Septimius Severus in the Forum, is inspired by
strong classical sentiment. It is the expression of a movement
which may be termed ‘ Constantinian classicism.’ It stands at the
end of a powerful movement in architectural creation. The cur-
rents and undercurrents that reach the late-classical from the
previous age can best be traced in portraits and reliefs; but high
above these stands the great efflorescence of architecture, which
above all marks out the true character of the period of the Tetrarchy
and Constantine. In the buildings of the Tetrarchy Roman art
rose once again, after the Flavian and Trajanic periods, to a great
achievement which still impresses us to-day.
Besides Rome there now appear the new Imperial residences in
Nicomedia, Thessalonica, Milan, and Treves, and in addition to
these the shifting Imperial courts and headquarters. It was not
merely the ‘infinita quaedam cupiditas aedificandi^,’ the ‘build-
ing mania’ of Diocletian himself that was here manifested. His
co-regents and their followers also had great buildings to their
credit. It is not their mere numbers, but rather the size and bold-
ness of the architectural conceptions in these structures that is
remarkable. Is this architectural climax under the Tetrarchy a
kind of international manifestation with parallel developments in
the several Western and Eastern parts of the Empire, or is it the
product of one people, whether Roman, Greek, or barbarian.?
In the various Imperial residences there is inevitably visible an
element of local tradition, displayed especially in technique and
handicraft, but also on higher planes of work. Furthermore, there
seem to have been travelling workshops with their decorators and
masons, and we can apparently recognize influences from Asia
Minor at work in the Balkans and in Rome. But the architects
certainly travelled too; and the main architectural concepts are so
definitely Roman, that we can undoubtedly treat the buildings of
the Tetrarchy as the latest flowering of Roman Architecture.
The military tradition in which Diocletian was reared, and his
national Roman sentiment, explain why his place of retirement
^ Volume of Plates v, 218.
2 Lactantius, de mart. per$. 7, 8,
568 THE TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap.
at Split^, as well as the palace at Palmpa® and perhaps also
other residences, was built in the form of a Roman camp.
We recall the derivation of the Forum Traianum from the
Praetorium of a camp. The tide cas/ra, preserved in an in-
scription at Palmyra, applies, like the word stratopedon, not to
a fortified defensive camp, but to the imperial court or head-
quarters camp. The masterly character of the planning which
distinguished architecture under the Tetrarchy is apparent in the
clever use of variation. At Palmyra, for example, by reason of
the general lie of the landscape, the ceremonial rooms form the
central point of the whole complex. At Split, on the other hand,
these rooms face the sea, turning their back on the camp. The
imperial Baths at Treves^ have a ground-plan which combines
essential unity with movement. The numerous apses in which the
inner rooms project outwards lend great variety to the plastic
form of the exterior. By the side of this symphony of cross-vaults,
domes and half-domes there stands a building serving quite another
purpose; the plain, simple, large hall of the flat-roofed basilica^.
The Baths of Diocletian in Rome followed the traditional
ground-plan of the other great Roman Thermae. But there are
differences too. With dominating sureness and simplicity the
whole central complex is drawn together and becomes a unit,
while the side-courts get a new main axis. The plan of Con-
stantine’s Baths was adapted to the configuration of the ground.
It was a very bold idea, both technically and artistically, to isolate
the kind of unit that had hitherto formed the cross-vaulted hall in
Thermae, and to employ this design for building the detached
Basilica of Maxentius®, completed by Constantine. The latter
altered it somewhat by adding a side-facade and a corresponding
apse. The somewhat purposeless central hall, that had formerly
been incorporated in the great Baths, now achieved, in the building
of Maxentius, a kind of structural direction which terminated in
an apse. The six large chambers, which lie between the piers that
take the thrust, and which in the Thermae had served as passage
ways or departments of the Baths, were now thrown open so as
to form real spaces which are part of the main hall. They were not
aisles flanking a nave, but they opened out like six gigantic side-
chapels set at right angles to the hall®. Similar structures exist in
the Liwans of Sassanian palaces. Mention must be made of
Diocletian’s reconstruction of the Curia in the Forum with its
1 Plan 4, facing p. 570.
® Plan 3, facing p. 570- ® Volume of Plates v, 222, a.
* Ib. 222, b. ® Ib, 224, a. ® Plan 5, facing p. 570.
XVI, m] THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE TETRARCHY 569
cross-vaults springing straight out of the walls, of the cellae of the
double-temple of Venus and Roma vaulted by Maxentius, of the
gigantic structures of the Circus of Maxentius, as well as of further
experiments with the problem of the circular building. This
finally culminated in a new production exemplified by the tomb
of S. Costanza, in which the dome rests upon a ring of double-
columns which separate the central structure from a barrel-
vaulted ambulatory.
The Basilica of Maxentius marks both the climax and the end
of ancient Roman-classical development, which found no con-
tinuation. But early Constantinian architects created one monu-
mental type of building which was to have a greater after-effect
than any other. The Lateran Basilica^ was probably the first
large Christian ecclesiastical building, for the tradition holds
that it is mater et caput omnium eccksiarum. A fixed type for the
Christian basilica had not previously existed save on a small scale.
Of course certain basic principles like the separation of clergy and
congregation, and the significant relation of the whole building
to the altar, would already have been established in various early
meeting rooms. The Christian Basilica with its flat wooden roof
has been regarded as retrograde when compared with the Basilica
of Maxentius. But it is just as deliberately built on a different
plan as is the Basilica of Treves on a plan differing from that of
the neighbouring Thermae. The desire for the parallel movement
of nave and aisles could not be realized in a cross-vaulted hall.
Furthermore, a view obtained which was contrary to that prevalent
since vaulting was adopted for romanesque architecture, and the
vault was thought of as something secular contrasting with the
sacred, horizontal, coffered ceiling of the temple. The monumental
type of the Christian basilica was created by architects of genius to
serve the needs of Christian worship. It is the peculiarity of the
actual Roman basilica with transepts that the impressive flowing
movement of nave and aisles is arrested by the transepts and turned
to serenity. The creation of the Christian basilica is only properly
appreciated when it is revealed as the most brilliant achievement
of the last efflorescence of Roman architecture. A second climax
was indeed reached by ancient architecture, but it was a unique
achievement and itwas final. This was Justinian’s church of the
Holy Wisdom in Constantinople, grounded on a long develop-
ment that was rooted in the Hellenism of Asia Minor.
The victory of the Church resulted in a classicizing of Christian
art. It coincided with a reaction in portraits and relief work
^ Volume of Plates v, 224, h.
570 TRANSITION TO LATE-CLASSICAL ART [chap. XVI, iii
against the dry style of the Tetrarchy. After the year 315
there appear beside the expressionist portraits others that link on
to an Augustan style^. With this classicism there is associated a
return to a more plastic kind of modelling. There is pure Hel-
lenistic inspiration, short-lived though it was, in the creation of
Christian sculpture in the round. One splendid work of art made
in Egypt for the Emperor, the porphyry sarcophagus destined to
hold the remains of Helena, shows traces of a revolt against
primitive expressionism and of a return to the classical forms of an
earlier style A From the time of the reliefs on the Arch of Constan-
tine we can trace, both on the pagan and more especially on the
Christian sarcophagi of Rome, a striving after more beauty of
form and nobility of expression; and this attains an apex in the
year 359 with the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.
Thus in every branch of art the early years of Constantine
marked the first beginnings of a tide that was to sweep beyond the
year 330 in an unbroken flood.
^ Volume of Plates v, 226, a, h.
2 Ib. 228.
CHAPTER XVII
THE LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST
FROM THE ANTONINES TO
CONSTANTINE
1. INTRODUCTION
I N the age of the Antonin es Latin literature enters a new period
of its career. It is one, but only one, of the literatures of
Rome. The other is Greek. From the time of the Punic Wars
when, in Horace’s words, Greece captive captured its rude victor,
no eminent man of letters among the Romans had failed to be
conversant with Greek literature, and a few now and then ven-
tured to express themselves in the Greek language. Under
Hadrian, the cosmopolitan, it became more natural for a writer
to use either language as suited his needs. But it was not until
the age of Hadrian’s successors that this fusion of the two modes
of literary expression became complete. The normal medium for
Fronto was Latin, but Greek also slips freely from his pen. He
writes to his Imperial master almost always in Latin, and to his
master’s mother, Domitia Lucilla, in Greek. Marcus Aurelius
responds to his tutor in Latin, but expresses his deepest self in
Greek. A half century later, if we may trust the Historia Augusta^ ^
the younger Maximin had as his tutor in Greek a scholar with
the Latin name of Fabillus and as a tutor in Latin one with the
Greek name of Philemon. The successors of Livy in this period —
inferior successors — were Appian under the Antonines and Cassius
Dio under the Severi; and both of them wrote in Greek. It was
a bilingual world.
The unifying force in this hybrid culture was Rome. All the
civilized Occident was Roman, the language and the birthplace
of an author were matters of chance. Lucian and Athenaeus,
writing in Greek, came the one from Syria, the other Egypt, but
Aelian was born at Praeneste. Fronto and Apuleius, known
mainly as Latin authors, were Africans. Whatever a writer’s place
of origin or his eventual domicile, the City is still the centre of
attraction. Greek and Latin, to repeat, are but different media for
the same literature — that of Rome. The treatment of Latin
works in the present chapter is only part of the story.
572 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
Nor can the whole story be told without some consideration
of the vital forces at work in this period. If we think of the glories
of the age of Augustus, literature under the Antonines and their
successors seems plainly on the retrograde. It accompanies the
decline and fall of the Roman Empire. No surging, national
impulse prompts writers to their best, as in the days of Virgil.
For all that, the conception of a world running down does in-
adequate justice to the age that led from Hadrian to Constantine.
Historians give various reasons for the breaking up of Rome, but
the summation of the factors that they discuss — apolitical, military,
economic (and epidemic)— leaves something unexplained. It is
more profitable, while following these various changes or cata-
strophes, to note the seeds of a new life that in spite of these, or
along with these, was coming into being.
Here the fresh impulse comes from the East, and above all from
Palestine. Greek and Roman religion had been hospitable long
before to Oriental rites and ideas; under the Empire there came
a second wave, spreading wider than the first. There was a conflict
between the old and the new in pagan practice and there was a
conflict between this modified paganism and Christianity. In the
novelty of the Christian faith Celsus, Porphyry and Julian saw a
menace to the Hellenistic civilization of their day and to the
Empire of Rome. But the cleavage was not absolute. A recon-
ciliation was in store, effected by the foundation of a new and
Christian humanism in the fourth century. The period preceding,
with which this chapter is concerned, was one of pregnant conflict.
Such is the background on which we may place the Latin
literature of the second and third centuries of our era. Luckily no
terms like ‘Golden Age’ or ‘Silver Latinity’ (or ‘Leaden Latinity’)
have been applied to it by modern writers. We are free to identify
its periods with the reigns of the different rulers or groups of these
rulers. The Christian literature that demands our attention starts
at the end of the second century. Though its founders are treated
together in the account of the age of the Severi, Christians and
pagans are not to be put in separate compartments. They were
not in separate compartments when they wrote their works ; they
were citizens or subjects of the Roman Empire.
II. THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES
The Latin literature of the Age of the Antonines is not lacking
in interest, variety or novelty. Fronto, the arbiter litter arum of the
day, was not aware that ancient culture was going Into a decline.
He well sustained the lineage of those critics who, from Cicero on,
XVII, Ii] THE BACKGROUND 573
had kid down the law to their generations or their princes.
Fronto’s theory of style, typified by the phrase elocutio novella^
which is indeed his own, has been widely interpreted as an anti-
quarian attempt, something in the spirit of our Pre-Raphaelites,
to go behind classic standards, to hunt out ancient words discarded
by the purists, or popular words never accepted by them, and to
make of those a quaint and novel style. A typical expression of
this idea is given by Walter Pater in a passage of seductive
beauty^, though for just what elocutio novella means we go to
Pronto.
Marcus Cornelius Fronto was born at Cirta in Numidia in
the early years of the second century. He was presumably a Roman
by descent, as his gentile name indicates, but his early training
was in Greek literature rather than Roman. He probably studied
at the famous schools of Alexandria, where rhetoric was the subject
of his choice, and it remained the dominant influence in his career.
He devoted himself, however, not to the profession rhetor, but,
like Cicero, to a career in public life. He was z triumvir capitalis
at Cirta, and always maintained an interest in the politics of his
birthplace. Coming to Rome at the end of Hadrian’s reign he was
made a senator. He went through the regular cursus honorum, with
a quaestorship— like Cicero’s, again — in Sicily. Under Antoninus
Pius he was consul suffectus in the same year, 143, that Herodes
Atticus was consul ordinarius. If a philosopher was soon to become
a king. Rhetoric at least controlled the consulate, as often in the
past. Fronto was designated for a proconsulship in Asia, but the
ailments from which he suffered prevented him from assuming
that function. He remained in Rome, an ornament of the literary
coteries of the day. His death occurred after 165 and probably
before 169.
Such a career suggests in its outlines that of Cicero and pro-
phesies that of Ausonius. Fronto’s speeches won him an immediate
and, in antiquity, an enduring fame, not revived in modern times
until Cardinal Angelo Mai brought to light the fragments of his
works contained in a famous palimpsest of Bobbio. This was an
unhappy discovery, think some®, for Fronto’s reputation. Of late
a more favourable view has rightly prevailed; for the Letters are
among the treasures of Latin literature.
Shortly after Hadrian, in 138, had adopted Antoninus as his
heir, with Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus to continue the
line, Fronto was appointed tutor for the young princes. Most of
the letters are written to Marcus, with some to Lucius, to the
^ Marius the Epicurean, chap. v. ® Naber, Introd. p. iii.
574 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
Emperor Antoninus and to other friends of high standing. Some
few are in Greek. Such a correspondence lacks the scope of either
that of Cicero or that of Pliny, but it contains what neither of
these do, the outpouring of a singularly warm friendship, the
love of a master for the pupil whose genius he was moulding,
and the love of the pupil, aware of his destiny and grateful to his
guide. The young prince does not hesitate to lavish on Pronto
epithets of a most romantic sound, while Pronto can declare that
nothing is sweeter to him than his pupil’s kiss. Such letters attest
a high and noble element in the ancient affections of man for
man; from its vice young Marcus, helped doubtless by his love
of Pronto, had kept clear. He is spurred to his best because of
him. ‘Amo vitam propter te, amo litteras tecum.’ He values him
not so much for his mastery of rhetorical style as for his simplicity
and his love of truth.
Thus the young philosopher cultivated rhetoric assiduously,
for his master’s sake. There are touches of humour and banter
in the talkings to and fro. The lad breaks out in joy at his master’s
great consular speech and would give him a kiss for every section.
He welcomes criticism and Pronto spares not the rhetorician’s
rod. But he can mix praise with blame, encourage to further
effort, worry all night about his pupil’s progress, and find at the
last that in his twenty-second year Marcus has proved himself
expert ‘in omni genere dicendi,’ conversant with all the liberal
arts, and more important still, in the art of making friends.
Rhetoric was not the whole of life for Pronto.
In his twenty-fifth year Marcus Aurelius declared open revolt
against rhetoric^. Pronto faced the situation bravely, and wrote
for his pupil a little discourse de eloquentia, a rhetorical Mirror of
the Prince — ^for a prince who had turned philosopher. Marcus,
though fixed in his resolve, was touched by his tutor’s appeal and
now worried about his health. He begged him to select for him
the letters of Cicero that would best improve his style.
Pronto’s theory of style is not the construction of a mosaic from
rare words quarried from the primitives. He studies the primi-
tives — ^among others — not for the rare word, but for the right
word, exact and striking and luminous^. He spurns mere novelty
for novelty’s sake, for he knows that like the sublime it may
descend swiftly to the ridiculous. The orator must search and
^ ad M. Caes.iv, 13 (p. 75N; i, p. 216 Loeb).
® ad Ant. Imp. i, 2, 5 (P- 9^ P- 4^ Loeb) verba non ohvia sed
optima-, ad M. Caes. iv, 3, 3 (p. 63 N ; i, p. 6 Loeb) insperata atque inopinata
verba-, ad M. Ant. de eloq. iii (p. 1 50 N ; ii, p. 74 Loeb) verborum lumina.
XVII, Ii] FRONTO AS TEACHER AND STYLIST 575
study. Not all the ancients have the clarion-note; some of them
bellow or shriek, for the change of even a syllable or a letter may
spoil the beauty of a phrase. Such principles of style are not
preciously archaistic. There is no proclamation of a quaint new
mode of writing. The term elocutio novella heralds no novel
quaintness, but refers to that freshness of expression for which
Pronto was always on the watcW. Fronto’s interest in the early
writers is as wholesome as that of Cicero, whose mind was steeped
in the poetry of Ennius and the oratory of Gracchus, and who can
2Am\xt verhorum vetustas prisca^, new turns of phrase and luminous
expression^. So Horace, though a modern of the moderns, bids
the true poet hunt up in Cato or Cethegus words once bright
but now caked with mould, and make them shine again^. Fronto
is not one of the archaizers, found in any age, of whom the
younger Seneca said that they talk the Twelve Tables®.
Against this sentimental cult of the antique, Fronto’s careful
method seems like a deliberate protest, Hadrian, whom he could
eulogize but not love, was guilty, as he puts it, of affecting a
cloudy colouring of ancient eloquence®. For Fronto, the count
of mighty poets was not made up with those of the early Republic.
He calls Lucretius sublime, and Horace a ‘memorable poet.’ To
Virgil he appeals as a master of nice distinctions in the use of
words'^. The historians favoured by him are not merely those of
the earliest period, Julius Caesar evokes his admiration for his
imperial style, Sallust is quoted many times, and his rhetoric is
minutely and admiringly analysed. In oratory, besides Sallust,
Cato commands the enthusiasm of both master and pupil. But
Cicero, too, the orator supreme, is an indispensable model in
Fronto’s school. He may lack that patient search for the fitting
word to which Fronto was devoted, but none excel him in the art
of adorning his subject. Fronto declares in a phrase which the
little Ciceronians of the Renaissance would have echoed with
delight that Pompey deserved his title of ‘The Great’ not so much
for his own achievements as for the speech on the Manilian Law.
The orations of Cicero have the true clarion-call and nothing is
more perfect than his letters®.
1 ad. M. Ant. de eloq. iv (p. 153 N; ii, p. 80 Loeb).
2 de orat. i, 43, 193; cf. on archaic art, /A iii, 25, 98.
® de orat. in, 6, 24. ^ Ep. ii, 2, 1 16-18. ® Epist. Mor. 114, 13 rf
* ad M. Caes. ii, i (p. 25 N; i, p. 1 10 Loeb); ad Ferum Imp. ii, I
(p. 124 N; n, p. 138 Loeb) (E. Hauler, Wien. Stud, xxv, 19035 P- ^63).
’ GelHus, N.A. ii, 26.
8 ad M. Ant. de eloq. in (p. 149 N; li, p. 74 Loeb); ad Ant. Imp. il, 5
576 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
But with Cicero Fronto’s training of the young orator stops.
No use is made of the Augustan authors— despite Fronto’s
reverence for Virgil — and those of the ‘Silver Age’ are mentioned
only to be damned. Seneca, ironically called his master, is likened
to a juggler, and Lucan is ridiculed for saying the same thing in
seven different ways at the beginning of his poem on the Civil
War. The rest with one exception^ are passed over in silence.
This means nothing less than a quiet Republican revolution in
letters. One may naturally think of the Neo- Attic movement in
Greek literature. Fronto’s first training was in Greek, and though
the old Greek authors, with the exception of Homer, do not loom
large in the Letters^ he could not help knowing contemporary
Greek writers associated with the court. Appian, the historian,
was an intimate friend, to whom he writes in Greek, and Herodes
Atticus, one of the leaders in the New Sophistic, was a fellow-
tutor of young Marcus. But though his relations with Herodes
were, on the whole, friendly, he would not have been disposed to
adopt for the training of his imperial pupil in Latin style the
method that his rival at court was exercising in Greek. In any
case, his own doctrine reposed on a firmer basis than that of
imitation. The influence of Neo-Atticism, which had started
under Hadrian, may have affected him unawares, but Fronto’s
own purpose was not to create a Roman Neo-Attic style to match
that in vogue among the Greeks. He ridicules the ‘quarrelsome’
style of Calvus, a professed Atticist, but calls that of Cicero
‘triumphant.’ Fronto’s aim is to return to the best standards of
the Republic after the degeneracy of Imperial oratory, particu-
larly in the age that had preceded his own. He does not, like
certain authors of the Silver Age, shed tears over the decay of
culture and on the connection of that decay with tyranny. His
spirit is rather the confidence of a humanist in the fore-front of
a Renaissance than the wistfulness of a Pre-Raphaelite courting a
primitive quaintness. With the ruler of the Empire as her pupil,
Rhetoric will waken to a new life.
In Fronto’s own style there is nothing bizarre or recherche^
and nothing especially distinguished, in the fragments of his
speeches. They are in the ‘plain’ style {siccum), according to
Macrobius^. In some of his rhetorical exercises, particularly in
the Fable of Sleep, which Pater deemed worthy of translation in
his exquisite style®, there is curiously a breath of something new
^ Suetonius, quoted merely for an anatomical term: ad antic, i, 13
(p. 182 N; n, p. 174 Loeb).
2 Sat. V, I, 7. ® Marius the Epicurean, chap. xiu.
XVII, n] FRONTO AS CRITIC 577
and romantic, a harbinger of Apuleius — but this is a passing
mood. In his letters, though the model may not be directly his
much-admired Cicero, he at least achieves, with differences from
Cicero in phrasing and cadence, a plain and unaffected manner.
He modestly declares that in his search for fresh and vivid
language he achieves merely an obsolete or a vulgar diction. In
other words, he deplores as a failing what some have described
as the guiding principle of his style. There is no denying the
presence of archaisms in his vocabulary and his grammar, but his
purpose, whatever his success in achieving it, was to cultivate a
living Latin, not to dig up dead Latin from its grave.
Fronto’s style befits his character — simple, kindly, conscient-
ious, with touches of humour now and then. He speaks too
profusely of his many ailments, but is just as solicitous about the
health of his pupil. He is fond of his wife and of the ‘ little chicks ’
of Marcus ; he is heart-broken when his own little grandson dies.
He has a warm heart, possessing that virtue of philosiorgia^ the
name and nature of which he had not found in Rome. He is
devoted mind and soul to rhetoric and takes a natural pride in the
training of his prince, but he has neither the little vanities of Pliny
nor the large vanity of Cicero.
The age of the Antonines produced a number of learned men,
some of them of the circle of Fronto. Among the grammarians
were Aemilius Asper, a noted commentator on Virgil, Flavius
Caper, and Statilius Maximus, who compared the rare expressions
of Cato with those of Cicero — ^an undertaking quite in line with
Fronto’s Republican interests. Helenius Aero annotated Terence
and also that memorahilis poeta, Horace. Probably in this era Juba
wrote on metrics, and a writer borrowing the name of Hyginus
compiled his sorry book of fables. Julius Titianus, perhaps towards
the end of this period, compiled a geographical work on the
Roman provinces, and made a collection of rhetorical themes
drawn from Virgil. The foremost scholars of the day were, of
course, the jurists.
One man of miscellaneous learning, who deserves a modest
place among the jurists, too, is Aulus Gellius, a younger con-
temporary of Fronto. Born we know not where or when, he
studied at Rome under the grammarian Sulpicius Apollinaris,
renowned in those days for his knowledge of Virgil and for his
metrical periochae of Terence’s plays. Gellius’ teachers in rhetoric
were Antonius Julianus and Titus Castricius. He writes pleasantly
of the former master, who would sometimes hold his classes on
the beach at Puteoli. Gellius would also call on Fronto, whose
37
C.A.H. XII
578 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
cultured conversations started him on the quest for the fitting
word. He completed his studies by resorting to the philosophers
of Athens. He also read widely in both the Greek and the Latin
jurists, and held a minor judicial office. At Athens, he dined
monthly with a little philosophical club and devoted his winter
nights to making excerpts from a wide range of authors both
Greek and Latin. In Fronto’s spirit he hunted words and he
hunted, besides, anecdotes and marvels and maxims and customs
and questions of law and any good subject for comment. These
excerpts and comments he put together in a work called fittingly
Attic Nights. After his return he worked in odd moments at his
pleasant task. Twenty books were published and garnerings in
plenty remained. His death occurred probably about the middle
of the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
Gellius is of the tribe of the anecdotists, like Favorinus and
Aelian and Athenaeus, though his work lacks both the richness
and the system of the Deipnosophists (p. 620). The anecdotes are
jotted down with no attempt at orderly arrangement. He en-
livens the treatment now and then with little dramatic dialogues,
cast in some picturesque setting.
Gellius’ reading in both Latin and Greek is more catholic, or
less discriminating, than Fronto’s. From Homer and Hesiod to
Theocritus, from Parthenius to Plutarch and Appian, he sampled
all that he could lay hands on. One might profitably arrange in
chronological order the excerpts from the Latin authors; the value
of his contribution to our knowledge of Latin literature would be
set in striking relief. The quotations from Ennius alone make
Gellius the rival of Cicero in preserving nearly all our significant
fragments of the father of Latin poetry, and were it not for Gellius^,
our knowledge of the Romans’ love-poetry before Catullus would
be well-nigh a blank. He rivals Cicero again in his citations of
the laws of the Twelve Tables. He quotes plentifully from Cato
and gives us valuable information about the works of Varro. He
sketches the contemporaneous developments of Greek and Roman
civilization through the Punic Wars, and he discourses on the
meaning of humanitas in a passage® with which all who write to-day
on ancient humanism must reckon. Some of the anecdotes make
the past suddenly alive with human interest®.
Despite the breadth of Gellius’ reading, we find on examining
his quotations, that his interests in Latin literature were virtually
those of Fronto. Of the writers of the Silver Age there appears
^ N.A. XIX, 9; II, 24, 8. ® N.A. XVII, 21; xiii, 17 (16).
® E.g. N.J. I, 23; XX, I, 13.
XVII, n] AULUS GELLIUS 579
the same neglect. He finds Valerius Maximus, Pliny the Eider
and Suetonius useful for anecdotes and marvels. He pays tribute
to the greatest scholar of the Empire, Valerius Probus. As a
Virgilian he cites Annaeus Cornutus, and as a more ardent
student of philosophy than Pronto, he speaks highly of Musonius
Rufus and Epictetus. He weighs the pros and cons for Seneca
with a certain tolerance, but concludes that he is a bad model for
the young^. There is no word on Lucan or Persius, Juvenal or
Tacitus: Gellius no less than Pronto champions a revival of
Republican Rome in letters.
The prose of Gellius shows a quiet absence of style, as befits
so learned a man. Like Pronto he is interested in ancient ex-
pressions and he consequently has certain seasonings of archaic
phrases and constructions in his informal diction, but, like Pronto,
he inveighs against those who either make a cult of antique usage
or condescend to vulgarisms®. The African quality in the style of
either Pronto or Gellius is no longer the subject of ardent debate.
Doubtless the early Republican Latinity introduced into Africa
in 146 B.c. had developed certain local peculiarities in its sub-
sequent history, but its literary centres were not shut off from
Augustan and post- Augustan influences. The quest of ‘ Africitas’
in the writers of the second century after Christ is as tempting,
and as satisfying, as that of Livy’s ‘Patavinity’ or that of the
spring of Bandusia on Horace’s farm. Por the moment, at least,
the matter rests with a non liquet. Pronto, born in Africa, had Rome
as his social, and Republican Latin literature as his intellectual,
milieu. Gellius, whom nothing whatsoever connects with Africa,
was domiciled in Athens, Rome and Praeneste; spiritually he
dwelt with a multitude of Greek writers, with those of Republican
Rome — ^and with Virgil.
The simple character of the writer is stamped upon his work.
He is a modest scholar, a bit pedantic, but by no means inhuman.
He liked good dinners and pleasant talk. He was born to be a
Pellow of an Academy — not its president, but its secretaire
perpetuel.
The theories of Pronto in his search for a new and living Latin
style found fruition in Apuleius. This writer stands on the same
peak with Lucian and Marcus Aurelius. These three and these
three alone among the writers of the Antonine Age have the spark
of genius; these three alone have moulded the thought and in-
spired the literary art of subsequent centuries ; and they alone are
widely read to-day.
58 o LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
Apuleius was born of a well-to-do official at Madauros in
Numidia about a.d. i 24. He studied at Carthage and at Athens,
quaffing the pleasant bowls, as he puts it, of the liberal arts, of
poetry, of the natural sciences and of philosophy^. He was
initiated into various religious rites. His restless and curious
temperament prompted him to wander far and wide in search of
mystic cults and strange adventures. He would have consorted
well with Germany’s Romantics, devoted to Sturm und Drang and
Wanderlust. He could turn his ready wit to anything from a poem
on tooth-powder to a scientific treatise on fishes or on magic. He
came after his wanderings to the unescapable Rome and stayed
there for a time. On his way back to his native region, he stopped
at Oea in the Tripolitan district, where he married Aemilia
Pudentilla the mother of his friend Pontianus, a lady of both more
wealth and years than he. Jealous relatives brought suit against
him for winning her affection by magical arts ; and indeed he had
a lively interest in magic, — damnahilis curiositas St Augustine
calls it^. He conducted his own defence — his speech bears the
title Apologia — before the proconsul Claudius Maximus at Sabrata.
He then returned to Madauros, spending the rest of his days
there or at Carthage. He enjoyed the fame of many an oratorical
triumph, commemorated by statues erected in his honour at
Carthage and elsewhere. But he also devoted his best energies
to the interpretation of Plato. The battle between Rhetoric and
Philosophy, decided in different ways by Pronto and Marcus
Aurelius, was for him but the stirring of a nature hospitable to
both®. A statue set up to him in his native place bore the title that
he most prized, PMlosophus Platonicus^.
Were we not so uncertain as to the dates of the writings of
Apuleius, both of those preserved and of the many that have not
reached us — in Greek and in Latin, in poetry and in prose — it
would be tempting to bisect his life, like that of Boccaccio and
that of Marcus Aurelius, into a distraught, exuberant youth and
a sober, philosophic maturity. The date of the trial at which his
Apologia^ full of autobiographical details, was presented, falls
between a.d. 155 and 158. He probably, though not surely,
composed his great Romance, the Metamorphoses., in Rome. That
work, too, reflects his own experience, seen as in a glass, im-
pressionistically, much as personal allegory shines through the
Eclogues of Virgil. It were rash to take any detail in it as bio-
1 Flor. 20. 2 Ep. 138, 19.
® de dogm. Plat, ii, 8; Flor. 9.
^ P. Vallette, Apol. Flor. (Coll. Bud^, Introd. p, vii.
XVII, II] APULEIUS 581
graphical fact, but in essence it records the journeyings of a soul
through carnal adventures into a mystic peace. It is Apuleius of
Madauros who, in the person of his hero Lucius, becomes in the
etidL ^ f astophoros of Osiris. He had lived on at least through part
of the joint-reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. A century
or two later he would possibly have atoned for poetry and other
youthful sins by ending his days as a bishop, in the odour of
sanctity and the arms of the Church.
Apologia, besides showing the speaker’s mastery of law and
his ability to conduct a defence, bespeaks his wide acquaintance
with the writers, both Greek and Latin, of poetry and prose. His
range is as wide as that of Aulus Gellius and, though his quotations
may not number as many, his understanding, especially of poetry
and philosophy, is deeper. He is moved to cite the ancients by the
charges of his prosecutor Aemilianus, a man of little learning in
Latin and none in Greek, whom he smothers under a blanket of
urbane culture. His pungent wit recalls Cicero’s treatment of
Caecilius, his dummy opponent in the trial of Verres. The
cultivated Claudius Maximus must have enjoyed himself at this
trial — and it was a warm day for Aemilianus.
The orator’s favourites among the Latin authors, not to mention
his acquaintance with the whole stretch of Greek literature, are
not only the primitives, but Caesar, Catullus, Calvus, Ticidas,
Hortensius, Sallust, Varro, Nigidius Figulus, and Tibullus,
Propertius, Virgil. The Silver Age passes unnoticed, but the verse
of Hadrian and of his friend Vocontius appear. In short, this is
the Republican programme of Fronto, which Apuleius encoun-
tered at Rome.
The style of the Apologia shows Cicero’s fluency as its argu-
ments show his wit. Apuleius characterizes the different orators
much in the manner of Fronto. The Apologia, as a specimen of
the genus iudiciale, has fewer oratorical flights than appear in
the Florida, a collection of extracts from epideictic speeches,
which exhibit the manner of the wandering sophists of the period.
Whatever of Africa they may contain, the breath of Asia is surely
there.
In his last period may perhaps belong the works on Platonic
philosophy. That entitled De Deo Socratis treats of the demon of
Socrates in connection with the whole world of daimones that
appears in Plato’s Timaeus. The ambitious subject of the work
De Flame et eius dogmate, is Plato’s entire philosophy, considered
under three heads — natural science, dialectics and ethics. The
second part of these divisions is lost, What remains, taken with
582 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
remarks on Plato elsewhere^, is nearer to Plato than is sometimes
asserted: it all depends on the proper interpretation of the
Timaeus, which from the time of Cicero onwards was taken
literally, with but small allowance for the divine playfulness of its
author. But of the Neoplatonic hierarchies, ecstasies and necro-
mancies which one might expect to find, there is little trace.
Apuleius was also devoted to Aristotle. By him may be a transla-
tion of the treatise De Mundo ascribed to Aristotle, and a translation
of the De Inlerpretatione. Among the writings that have not come
down to us are works on the liberal arts, which then as to Boethius
and to medieval thinkers were indissolubly connected with the
crown of them all, philosophy. Other works, on philosophical,
scientific and historical subjects, along with love-poems and
another romance have likewise perished. The style of the philo-
sophical works preserved is appropriately simpler than that of the
orations. Besides, various works by other writers eventually were
attributed to him — for his name had acquired authority.
The philosophical programme of Apuleius was apparently that
of Cicero before him and that of Boethius after him, to make the
best of Greek philosophy accessible to Roman readers. And,
whatever his defects as an expounder of the philosophy of Plato,
we may grant him his coveted title of Platonicus for his remark that
‘we of the household of Plato care for nothing that is not festal
and joyous and solemn and high and celestiaP.’
The masterpiece of Apuleius, the Metamorphoses, is a composite
of two literary forms. Into the frame of a romance, such as had
been invented in Hellenistic times and popular under the Empire,
he set a number of Milesian tales, spiced with ribaldry, sorceries,
robberies and horrors. But the best of these stories, that of Cupid
and Psyche, more of a medieval fairy tale than a Greek myth, is
pure and sweet in tone. Its quality shines the brighter from the
gruesome setting in which it is placed — ^an art that both Ovid and
Boccaccio, an admirer of Apuleius, well understood. The story
of a youth metamorphosed into an ass had been told by one Lucius
of Patrae and perhaps by the great Lucian himself, of whose work
a crude epitome still survives. Whatever the relation of Apuleius
to his models, he has produced a structure of his own with touches
of allegory and autobiography, as we have seen, that do not disturb
the general design. Behind it is a mind not obsessed with romantic
cravings, but master of itself, and of literary art, with careful
^ E.g. Apol. 43, 49. The summary of Platonism may have been drawn
from the same source as that of Albinus in Greek. See A. D. Nock,
Sallustius, p. xxxvii. 2 jlpol, 64.
XVII, H] the METJMORPHOSES 583
planning, dramatic suspense, suasoriae^ parody — even of Virgil —
and delicate satire — even of the gods. Yet it is a kindly mind, with
sympathy for men and beasts. It enjoys good fun and a laugh at
its own expense^. It is a religious mind, that cleanses off its own
pollutions somewhat as Virgil’s shepherds cease their ribaldries
when they begin their contest of song. The high mysticism, the
high purity, and the gorgeous liturgy in which the progress of the
soul culminates, sets forth in a sincere and alluring form the modes
of cult and devotion against which the faith of Christians had to
contend and over which it triumphed.
The style of this masterpiece is suited to the theme. The writer
apologizes — it is a mock apology — for the rude and exotic
Latinity, which he, a poor Grecian, had picked up in Rome®. No
learned parade of his reading is made. No authors except great
and typical figures, like Homer and Pythagoras, are mentioned.
Words and sentences are humble, caught from the lips of the
common people — of Africa, need we say? Diminutives abound,
as in the low Latin whence Italian is derived. But the language is
not really crude; it is fused with colour and with poetry. We may
adapt a phrase of his own to describe it — ‘pictura Babylonica
miris coloribus variegata®.’ Some of the expressions, not found
elsewhere, may well be the inventions of the author. Assonance
and rhyme abound. Stretches of such prose, like the prose of
George Meredith in his lyric moods, could be cut up into decent
free verse ; the flow of the sentence sets itself many a time to music.
This is the manner that Fronto had imperfectly attempted in his
Fable of Sleep. It is wholly different from its author’s oratorical
and philosophical styles and leagues away from Cato or anything
archaic. Nor is it a reflex of Neo-atticism, though Apuleius in his
literary feeling was half Greek. It is the proper diction for romance,
and Apuleius is its great perfecter.
One element in the spiritual make-up of this curious and many-
sided genius should not be forgotten. Apuleius was African by
birth, Athenian by training. Oriental by his contact with the
mystic cults, but also, by the magnetism of the City, an inhabitant
of Rome. His mind dwelt reverently, as the Apologia shows*, in
various epochs of the Roman past. And the deity that comes to
Lucius in a vision gives him a blessing of which the old formula
‘quod bonum felix faustumque sit’ is a part®. But we are not
listening to a magistrate opening an assembly. A priest is ab-
solving a penitent’s soul — ‘quod felix itaque ac faustum salu-
1 Met. IX, 42. ® Met. i, I. ® Elor. 9.
E.g. Jpol. ii,zo,b 6 . ^ Met. -xi, %<). :>
I
584 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
tareque tibi sit.’ A new world has entered with the simple change
of ‘bonum’ to ‘salutare.’
The interests of the circle of Fronto found expression in poetry
as well as prose. The poets of the day, so far as the scanty frag-
ments of their works permit a judgment, cultivated a simple vivid
style and the shorter forms of verse, in which some novelties
appear. As harbingers of the new movement we may regard the
Emperor Hadrian and his friend Florus, who exchanged trifles
of an Anacreontic nature that of a sudden could set forth true
pathos, as in the Emperor’s address to his dying soul — ‘ pallidula,
rigida, nudula.’
One of the Antonine poets is pleasantly pictured by Aulus
Gellius — Annianus. This gentleman possessed an estate in the
Faliscan territory in Etruria, where Gellius dined with him. The
poet could talk learnedly of the effect of the waning moon on
oysters, quoting Lucilius; he could cite Plautus and Terence on
the proper accentuation of certain words, and he admired Virgil —
here are traits that bespeak the age of Fronto^. He also wrote
Fescennine verse presumably of a salacious sort. It is cited by
Ausonius in his apology for his own indecent Cento Nuptialis.
Annianus also composed, apparently with his estate in mind, what
he called a carmen Faliscum^, modelled on the work of Septimius
Serenus, the inventor of this form®. Since Serenus was a recent
writer for Terentianus Maurus, all three poets were contem-
poraries, or very nearly so, with Terentianus the last in the series.
Terentianus Maurus performed what at first would seem a
highly unpoetical task in writing a metrical treatise on metre
{de Litteris, Syllabis,M.etris\'vt\.th each metre described in specimens
of itself. But the poet, a master of his subject, is amazingly skilful
in turning technicalities into neat verse. He must have smiled
frequently at his success. He pursues the theory that the dactylic
hexameter and the iambic trimeter contain the other forms of
verse in embryo, and he deftly assists at their delivery. His chief
sources are Virgil, Horace, and Catullus, but he uses the primi-
tives too, such as Livius Andronicus^, and though generally
eschewing the authors of the Silver Age, does not disdain examples
from Pomponius Secundus, the tragedian of the time of Tiberius,
^ Gellius, N.J. VI (vii), 7; ix, 10; xx, 8.
2 Marius Victorious, in, 14 {Gramm. Lat. vi, 122, 9 sqq. k).
® Terentianus Maurus, de Lit. Syll. Metr. 1991 and see Keil {Gramm.
Lat. VI, 323) on 1 . 1816 (anapaestic dimeters).
^ lb. 11. 1931 sqq . — ^a most important fragment, calmly assigned to
Laevius by some scholars.
XVII, n] ANTONINE POETS 585
and from ' Petroniiis,: Interest in metre would lead Terentianus
farther afield than FrontOj but the scope of his reading in poetry
is virtually the samCj and he seems to be speaking with Frontons
voice in bis encomiums of the ‘striking ' — novitas inopina^.
: The ' verse ^' o Septimius Serenus that Annianus' renamed'
Faliscan consists of three dactyls followed by a pyrrhic or an
iambus— more easily read as a half of a dactylic hexameter (up to
the pen themimeral caesura) plus a proceleusmatic. The fragment
describes the proper mode of mating the vine and the elm:
quando flagella iugas, ita iuga,
vitis et ulmus uti simul eant!
nam nisi sint paribus fruticibus,
umbra necat teneras Amineas. (2001-2004)
It looks as though Serenus had composed a new Georgies in a really
rustic verse. In fact we are told by Marius Victorinus that this
measure was called calabrion by the Greeks because it was used by
Calabrian peasants in their country songs^ — all at once we have
a glimpse of the folk-poetry of Magna Graecia. Another fragment
in which the verse extends to the hephthemimeral caesura of the
dactylic hexameter —
Inquit amicus ager domino —
is evidently from the same poem. For Maurus, who cites it as
one of his exempla novella^ calls the work plainly a didactic poem
on the country^. Elsewhere in his ‘dulcia opuscula' he uses three
choriambs plus a bacchius:
lane pater, lane tuens, dive biceps, biformis.
Or the second choriamb in such a line may be replaced by two
iambi :
cui reserata mugiunt aurea claustra mundi —
a graceful line of rapid movement. It is not certain that all these
bits and others in other metres amassed from other sources^ are
from this new Georgies oi Serenus, but it is clear that he experi-
mented with novel and light-moving forms of verse, some of which
were tried later by Boethius®. In fact Jerome can rank Serenus
1 Ih, L 1922. Cf, above, p. 574. ^ Gramm, Lat, vi, 122, 9 k.
® Line 1975: Septimius docuit quo ruris opuscula libro.
^ Baehrens, Poetae Lat, Min, vi, 384-8,
^ In the De Metris Boeti Lihellus compiled by Lupus Servatus, the metre
of Cons. Phil. Ill, m, i is called faliscum (ed, Peiper, 1871, p, xxyii). Some
good and ancient source was apparently followed by Lupus in this work, 1
586 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
with Pindar, Alcaeus, Horace and Catullus as the pagan lyric
bards of whom King David the Psalmist is a Christian peer^. If
this utterance of Jerome, no mean connoisseur of ancient letters,
be given full credit, we have lost in Septimius Serenus a lyric
poet worthy to be named with Horace and Catullus.
One more member of this circle of the moderns may be men-
tioned— Alfius Avitus. He wrote not long before Maurus several
books on Excellentes, ‘Heroes,’ in iambic dimeters^. Priscian®
quotes from the second book of this work a fragment from the
story of the faithless schoolmaster of Falerii who marched his
pupils over to the Romans and whom, by order of Camillus, his
pupils flogged back^.
Turn literates creditos
Ludo Faliscum liberos
Causatus in campi patens
Extraque muri ducere.
Spatiando paulatim trahit
Hostilis ad valli latus.
This poet, a modern with eyes on the past, seems to have anticipated
Macaulay’s plan of celebrating the heroes of his country — ^here
Camillus — ^not in an epic but in lays of ancient Rome®.
We may turn from these tantalizing fragments to a poem
complete, or nearly so, and one of the most remarkable in the
whole range of Latin verse, the Pervigilium Veneris. Not all
would agree that it is a product of the Antonine Age, where
Waiter Pater and others have put it; in fact there has been some-
thing of a drift since Pater’s time towards the assumption of a
later date — ^but none of the later dates proposed has been definitely
established. It may be said, with due caution, that nothing in the
atmosphere, style or grammar of the poem jars with the age of
Pronto and Apuleius or with the poetry just discussed.
But waiving all questions of date and authorship, we may centre
our attention on the poem itself. It is included in an anthology
of occasional verse contained in the famous Codex Salmasianus,
which was put together at Carthage, about a.d. 532. That is not
proof that the poem was written in Africa. In the Salmasianus
the poem bears at the beginning the phrase ‘sunt vero versus
xxn,’ which means not that the poem had twenty-two verses (it
has ninety-three) or twenty-two strophes, but that there were
^ Ep, 53, 8, 17. ^ Terentianus Maurus, op. cit. 1. 2448,
® Gramm. Lat. ii, 426 K. ^ Livy v, 27.
® The poem on the Lupercalia by Marianus ("Baehrens, Poefae Lat. Min.
VI, 384) may be of the same sort.
XVII, n] THE PERFIGILIUM VENERIS 587
twenty-two poems in the division of the anthology that it heads.
The presence of the frequent refrain:
eras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit eras amet
would induce some omissions or transpositions, and a gap in the
sense at line 58 makes some adjustment necessary. Some scholars
assume that the original form presented a subtle series of strophes
and antistrophes in the manner of a Greek ode, some would divide
it into quatrains, a theory alluringly set forth by Dr Mackail,
and some would note a series of irregular strophes which present
an orderly succession of poetic ideas.
Assuming but a few changes in our present text, we have the
following sequence: The poet announces the festival of Venus,
which will take place on the morrow. He praises the spring, the
season of love. To-morrow is the bridal of the earth and sky, when
the sea gave birth to Venus. She is the universal spirit of genera-
tion. She is also the mother of the Romans, whose royal race she
has preserved from Romulus to the present Caesar. She brightens
the spring with roses, sprinkling their virgin buds with dew. On
the morrow the rose will reveal its own crimson, and become a
bride in pure and single wedlock. The goddess orders the Nymphs
into the groves and Cupid escorts them. They are afraid of his
arrows, so he goes naked and unarmed. Beware of him, however!
Cupid when naked is armed cap-d-pie. Venus now sends the
virgins to implore the virgin Diana to refrain from the chase
during the festival. The appeal succeeds. One may now see for
three nights joyous troops in the woods, making merry in their
myrtle-trimmed huts. The goddess has her throne adorned with
the flowers and holds her Court of Love. The spirit of Venus now
spreads throughout the countryside. In the country her boy
Cupid was born. All the beasts of the field, all the birds of the air
feel her presence. The raucous cry of the swans is heard in the
ponds, the nightingale sings joyously in the poplar’s shade. But
the poet has no joy, no love, no spring. He has only silence and
the despite of the Muse. Amyclae was ruined for its silence, and
silence has ruined the poet.
Loveless hearts shall love to-morrow, hearts that have loved shall love again?-
The poem with its supple verse, gorgeous colouring and mystic
over-tones is fittingly called by Dr Mackail ‘one of the finest
flowers of Latin poetry.’ It accords with Hadrian’s interest in the
^ Thus translated by F. L. Lucas in The Decline and Fall of the Romantic
588 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
cult of Venus; it is what a poet, growing old and sad, might well
have written when Hadrian was about to pass off the scene, or a
few years later. It is not liturgy, though there is perhaps a sug-
gestion of liturgy mingled with reflection and seasoned with
memories of Virgil, of Lucretius and possibly of Catullus. Its
style in poetry suggests what Apuleius achieved in the prose of
romance.
The Age of the Antonines, so far as Latin literature is concerned,
means the reign of Antoninus Pius and the earlier part of that of
Marcus Aurelius. They both were men of culture and patrons of
learning, but Fronto’s pupil, ‘the only Emperor who had mastered
the schemata^ renounced the pomps and vanities of rhetoric and
applied himself with equal zeal to the business of State and the
perfection of a Stoic character (see vol. xr, chap. ix). He ren-
dered unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto the
Infinite the things that are the Infinite’s, preparing his soul as
conscientiously for its extinction as a Christian prepares his for
its immortality. Had he lived a century or two later, he doubt-
less would have ended his days in a monastery; his spiritual
experience was, unknown to himself, typical of the great revolution
then slowly and surely at work in all society. The colleague and
adoptive brother of Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, had a good
education and Fronto had made him, too, an orator, but his
insignificant career ended in a.d. 169. Under Commodus there
was little hope for the Muses. The descent from the philosopher-
king to the king-gladiator, his son, one of the ‘little chicks’ of
whom Fronto was fond, is one of the painful ironies of history.
III. THE AGE OF THE SEVERI AND THE RISE OF
CHRISTIAN LATIN LITERATURE
The year before the accession of Septimius Severus saw the
brief reigns of Pertinax and Didius Julianus. Had the former, a
sturdy soldier and ex-schoolteacher — ^himself taught by Sulpicius
Apollinaris — ^lived to establish the ancient discipline, as he desired,
a revival of Roman integrity in literature as in the State might well
have occurred, but his utter absence of tact led to his fall. Septimius
Severus, a harsh, though firm and conscientious, ruler, was well-
versed in both the Greek and the Latin authors, and in law. He
had some interest in philosophy, which for him included astrology,
and encouraged by his wife, the Syrian Julia Domna, displayed
a strong and superstitious devotion to African and Oriental cults.
He wrote an autobiography, now lost, which although he was
XVII, m] THE SEVERI AND LETTERS 589
born in Leptis Magna, and spoke Latin with an African accent,
may not have been a monument of ‘ Africitas’ in its style. For the
Emperor felt himself most Roman. He condemns Clodius
Albinus, another African and his rival for the throne, who had
‘ busied his senility with old-wives’ tales and literary nonsense like
those Punic Milesian novels of his beloved Apuleius^.’ One may
possibly detect in the animadversions of the Roman Septimius a
note of revolt against the school of Fronto. At this time, or per-
haps somewhat earlier, Julius Titianus^ wrote imaginary letters
of illustrious women on the plan of Ovid’s Heroides, but in prose.
His prose was so closely modelled on that of Cicero’s Letters that
he gained from the Frontonians the title of the orator’s ape^.
Titianus may have belonged to a party of opposition — ^his return
to Ovid is significant.
The poetry of this period has nothing to show but mimes and
centos, nor did the reigns of terror under Caracalla and Elaga-
balus, separated by a brief respite under Macrinus, produce any-
thing of note in letters.
In Severus Alexander a humanist, if not a philosopher, became
king. This monarch was well trained in the liberal arts and created
a literary circle about him — ‘amavit litteratos homines vehementer’
observes his biographer^. Among them was the Greek writer
Cassius Dio, who was at once administrator and historian. Latin
was the language of the eminent jurists, Aelius Gordianus, Paul
and Ulpian, the orators Claudius Venacus and Catilius Severus, and
the historian Encolpius. Severus himself was capable of metrical
quips in Greek, recalling, but not equalling, the jeux df esprit of
Hadrian, and he wrote, we know not whether in Greek or in
Latin, verses on the lives of good emperors. A quotation from
Persius made by the Emperor® may indicate that the tide was
turning in the direction of the neglected ‘ Silver Age,’ though there
is little additional evidence of this sort. Sammonicus Serenus in
his well-turned poem on medicine quotes Ennius, Plautus,
Titinius, Varro, Lucretius, Horace and Livy and his verse is
formed on that of Virgil. If this is a representative list, the
favourites of this poet are still within the circle of Fronto’s
authors. Such is the meagre crop from the plentiful seeds of
liberal culture sown by Severus Alexander.
1 S.H.A. Clod. Jib. 12, 12. The same writer tells us (i i, 7) that Clodius
Albinus had also written Georgka.
2 See above, p. 577. ® Sidonius Apoll. E-p. i, 2
* S.H.A. Jlex. Sev. 3, 4.
® Persius, 2, 69 (37>. S.H.A. 44, 9.
590 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
The Christian Church had no need of a literature for the first
century or more of its existence. The new community pursued an
underground existence until it came in conflict with the religion
of the State. It throve in silence under persecution and at last
found a voice to protest. The first apologies in the bilingual Roman
world were in Greek. In the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines
at least a dozen of them appeared.
Africa is the cradle of Christian Latin literature and its father’-
is Q. Septimius Florens Tertullianus. Born a pagan at
Carthage c. 1 50—1 60, trained in the same school of rhetoric as
Apuleius, he was well-versed in Greek and Latin letters, in
philosophy, and in law. A fiery, honest and original spirit,
Tertullian reacted against ancient culture, married a Christian
wife and is said to have become a priest of the Church. With
Rome as his centre of authority he defended true doctrine against
pagans, Jews and heretics. Disgusted at the laxness of Rome’s
bishop he embraced the hyperascetic regime of the followers of
Montanus and the revelations of the Paraclete vouchsafed to them
alone. He broke with this heresy and founded one of his own.
For all his divagations he was recognized as the founder of
Occidental theology. Jerome includes him in his history of the
Eminent Men of the Church, omitting mention of his works,
‘since everybody knows them®.’ He flourished in the reigns of
Septimius Severus and Caracalla, and lived to a decrepit old age.
In contrast with the pagan writers of that period, Tertullian had
something to say.
Among Tertullian’s earlier works there are defences of the
faith against the pagans, consolations for martyrs, instructions on
matters of Christian living, a general attack on heretics (Dr?
Praescriptione Haereticoruvi) and on Jews. Those that follow show
his growing repugnance to the carnal-minded [psychkt) and his
hatred of heresy is directed against the sects of the day, save that
into which he was drifting. The diverse errors of Hermogenes
on the eternity of matter, of the gnostics {Adversus Fakntinianos),
of Marcion and of the Monarchianists {Adversus Pratceand) are all
laid low. His De Anima^ a startling defence of the corporeality
of the soul, shows the lengths to which Tertullian’s contempt of
the gnostics’ shadowy spirituality could go. Pendants to this
scholarly treatise— of interest in the history of science as well as
^ The long debate over the priority of Tertullian or Minucius Felix has
apparently been settled in favour of Tertullian. See P. de Labriolle, La
reaction peiimne, p. 93. Yet note A. Amatucci in Africa Romana, p. 191.
® de Fir. 111 . 53. Every word in this brief biography is precious.
XVII, III] TERTULLIAN 591
of religion — are the works De Came Christi and the De Resur-
rectione Carnis. Some of the writings not extant were written in
Greek, in which he might have written all his works, had he felt
so inclined. Among these the loss of the seven books De Ecstasi
is especially deplorable. They would have shown us how this foe
of sentimentality had none the less an inner eye for visions, and
why he could chide the Church for obtuseness when the Spirit
would guide it into new truth.
Considered as literary products, the works of Tertullian suggest
Cicero and Seneca as their chief models for both subject and form.
De Patientia^ like De dementia or De Amkitia, is a philosophical
essay, though the writer is a priest instructing catechumens, not
a man of letters conducting a conversazione. The apologetic works
are arguments for the defence, like those in Cicero’s orations.
Ad Nationes, written to the pagans at large, refutes their slanders
and attacks their superstitions. The Apologeticum, written in the
latter part of the year 197 to provincial magistrates who tried
cases against Christians, is addressed to an imaginary court. The
charge that Tertullian refutes is that the Christians are disloyal
to the State and to the Emperor, its head. The answer is that they
best render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s by invoking in
his behalf the blessing of the one true God. The praise of the
Emperor at the expense of the gods in this great and simple
passage^ is suggestive of the tone in which Richelieu addressed
his monarch. With the same learning and the same mastery of the
law that Apuleius had shown in his own apologia speaks out with
an intensity prompted by the graver danger and the nobler cause.
At the same time he has by no means renounced Rhetoric with
other pomps of the world. He is as honest as she allows him to be.
The Christian and the Sophist engage his spirit in a new suasoria
and the Sophist too often wins the day.
The Apologeticum is of all Tertullian’s works the most carefully
composed and the best mirror of his mind, with its weaknesses
and its strength. Despite his legal and rhetorical quibblings there
is enough sound sense in the work to convert an intelligent pagan
to the reality of Christian life, although the attack here and else-
where on the pagan culture in which Tertullian had been reared
is bitter and persistent. It was not the moment for a Christian
humanism when smouldering animosities broke forth into active
persecution. He would not court the sympathy of pagans by
attempting a harmony between their poets and philosophers and
the writers of Sacred Scripture®. Rather, in the words of St Paul,
^ Apol. 30. ® de Test. Anim. fy ; , . ;
592 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
‘the wisdom of this world is as foolishness with God^,’ and a
professor of the classics a near neighbour to idolatry^. Yet once
delivered of this epigram Tertullian draws the distinction between
the teacher and the taught and wellnigh admits that the knowledge
of literature is a necessary equipment for life. One bond there is
between the ancient world and Christianity; it is that ‘testimony
of the naturally Christian soul’ that common people, in calling
on the name of God, have offered to His existence and His
goodness^. But Tertullian holds out no hand to the past. His
final argument, addressed to the proconsul Scapula in 2 12-2 13
and repeated later by Lactantius in his De Mortibus Persecutorumy
is that the persecuting magistrates have drawn upon themselves
the wrath of God and perished violently.
The authors whom Tertullian had read in the schools of Car-
thage are not completely indicated in his writings, for he quotes
mainly to refute them or to gather from them evidence of the
superstitions and immoralities of paganism or to show how much
better were the men of old than their gods. It is evident at least
that he was versed in Greek as well as in Latin literature, though
some, perhaps many, of his references are at second hand. The
names of Ovid, Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny the Younger among
his authors suggest that Fronto’s boundary has been passed. The
crucial instance is Seneca, who not only is quoted several times
but called saepe noster^.
The seekers of the tumor Africus have a happy hunting-ground
in Tertullian. He is African by birth and temperament. He
visited Rome, but eluded its attraction and broke with the Roman
Church. His style should a priori reveal African traits. A plausible
list of these has been assembled®, yet the influence of his study of
Greek and of the law and of the rhetorical tradition should not be
forgotten. Despite his archaisms his oratorical model is not the
simple Cato. His longer sentences are almost strophes with
parallelisms, assonances, rhymes and metrical clausulae®. We
must reckon also with his fondness for Seneca, and a trace of the
gorgeously romantic colouring of Apuleius may perhaps be de-
tected here and there, particularly in the Ds Pallio"^. He has been
^ de Sped. 18. ^ de Idol. 10.
® Apol. ly, de Test. Anim., passim. * de Anima 20.
® See particularly, H. Hoppe, De Sermone Tertullianeo, pp. 46—72.
® For examples see the beginning of the de Pudicitia and de Patientia\
E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, pp. 610 sqq.i Hoppe, Syntax und Stil des
Tertullian, pp. 8— ii, 154—60.
’ Hoppe, op. cit. p. 23; Norden, op. cit. p. 614.
XVII, m] THE STYLE OF TERTULLIAN 593
called in a clever epigram ‘a barbarizing Tacitus^,’ but the phrase,
like some epigrams, is faulty in both its parts. Tertullian was not
a barbarian, and he certainly did not model his style on that of
Tacitus, whom he called, in an epigram of his own, no tacit person
but a mendacious chatter-box^. He started, like Tacitus, with the
rhetoric of the schools, breaking through it, as Tacitus did in a
different way, by the force of his native genius. At its best, his
style is straightforward, strong and simple, the product of honest
conviction and Christian humility. The Paraclete gave him at the
right moment what he should say. He coins new words. His is
a living and a growing language®. It contains in the germ those
two antithetic styles, the ornate and the plain, which are displayed
in the history of Christian Latin literature, sometimes in the work
of the same writer, for instance Fortunatus, down into and through
the Middle Ages.
Judged solely as a man of letters, Tertullian, like Jerome,
deserves a high rank among the writers of satire. If he is not a
barbarizing Tacitus he may well be entitled a Christian Juvenal.
Like Juvenal, he did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. His
invective is no less tart, as when he describes the theatre as the
Devil’s church, or the Bishop of Rome as pastor moechorum, or
when he scolds the belles of Carthage — ^who, doubtless, loved to
hear him scold — for dosing their hair with saffron like victims led
to the altar, or when he ridicules the first families of Carthage for
objecting to his use of the simple pallium — ^the national garb
before their ancestors surrendered to Rome. Philosophers, pro-
fessors and heretics all deal in shams, which Tertullian mercilessly
blasts. Marcion, as a higher critic, ‘emends Holy Scripture with
the sword rather than the pen,’ and Praxeas, the Patripassionist,
doubly distasteful to Tertullian on account of his opposition to
Montanism, ‘ exiled the Paraclete and crucified the Father.’ Such
are the thrusts of sarcasm and wit that enliven many a page in
Tertullian.
If, further, we take ‘ satire ’ in the larger and ancient sense of the
word, Tertullian presents little pictures of daily life both Christian
and pagan that are of both human interest and historical im-
portance*. What to the pagan onlooker seemed, like Lucretius'
flock of sheep on the distant hill-side, a unified group — a group
of subversive fanatics — becomes in the pages of Tertullian a little
world of discords in faith and in practice no less pronounced than
^ G. h.%\rsxcox,History of Latin Literature, II, p. 275* * Apol. 16, 3.
® P. Monreaux, Hist. Litt. de P Afrique Chritienne, i, p. 44 ^*
^ E.g. Apol. 39; de Anima 9.
CJI.H XU 38
594 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
those that exist to-day. Yet the discords resolve in a harmony of
assurance. ‘We are of yesterday, and yet we now fill the world^.’
It is a new world in religion and in morality, with, for instance,
a conception of the sacrament of marriage, only adumbrated
before, that makes a conjoint pagan and Christian household
unthinkable.^ Finally, though the satire of Tertullian, like the
satire of Juvenal, is inspired by aj^ew indignatio^ it has its moments
of tenderness and sympathy without which invective loses its force.
For instance, he has nothing but praise for the real and simple
Rome of old, or for the instinctively Christian soul that through
the clouds of idolatry beheld a vision of God®.
Tertullian is a character for tragedy. He, the scholarly de-
fender of the Church against its enemies without and within, the
founder of its theology and its language in the 'West, the apostle
of a pure religion and undefiled, read himself out of the ranks by
his very devotion to Christian revelation. With all his honesty,
vigour and common sense, he could not escape the sophistic habit
of mind. With all his devotion to tradition, his acceptance of the
new prophecy transferred the seat of authority to the individual
soul. The Church excluded Tertullian not for his Puritanism, but
for his Protestantism. His confident reading of the Paraclete’s
messages engendered that self-will or hybris that brings a high-
minded hero to his fall.
The simple style appropriate for Christian humility, attained
by Tertullian in some moments, appears in a rare monument of
his times, an account of the martyrdom of two Roman maidens,
Perpetua and Felicitas, who suffered death with several of their
friends in the persecution of a . d . 204—3. Perpetua had recorded
the events up to the moment of her death, and some writer of
Montanistic leanings, possibly Tertullian himself, published the
little work, happily leaving its plainness unadorned. Perpetua
deserves a place with the heroines of tragedy. When her father,
a Roman of high station, asked her to recant, she said, ‘Father, do
you see that pitcher there.?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Can it be called by any other
name than that which it has?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then I cannot call myself
other than what I am, a Christian.’ When the beasts attacked her
in the amphitheatre, she pulled her torn garment about her,
mindful of her modesty rather than her pain. When brought out
again, she bound her scattered locks neatly, ‘for it was not proper
for a martyr to loosen her hair, lest she seem to mourn at the
moment of her glory.’ This is not the ‘theatrical’ death of
Christians that offended Marcus Aurelius.
^ jipol. 37, 4, 2 ad Vxorem, ii, 4, 9.
® Jpol. 6; 17.
S. PERPETUA 595
^ This brief document, as sincere as a Gospel, is the first of its
kind in Christian Latin literature. It is the sort of record that lay
before Prudentius when he composed the simpler of his poems —
like that on St Eulalia — ^in honour of the Martyrs’ Crowns.
Minucius Felix, no less eminent than Tertullian in the history
of Christian Latin literature, reflects a different social entourage
and most probably a different imperial regime. Like Tertullian
he was a pagan at the start and probably a native of Africa. After
an excellent education, wherever received, he settled in Rome,
perhaps early in the third century, and acquired fame in the law.
M Octavius') takes the form of a dialogue,
so artistically constructed that its apologetic contents seem in-
cidental. The subject is the conversion, after the debate, of
his friend Caecilius Natalis, who may be the M, Caecilius
Natalis or his father Quintus who figure in an inscription
of the early third century found at Cirta^. Cirta was Fronto’s
birthplace and Fronto’s attack on the Christians is answered
in the dialogue^. The work is named from the third speaker,
Octavius Januarius. The debate, whether actual or imaginary,
is placed in the past, as in some of the dialogues of Cicero. It
is impossible, therefore, to find in the association with Fronto’s
speech an argument for the date of the work itself.
The setting of the dialogue is presented with no little charm.
The three friends are strolling on the shore at Ostia. A reverential
kiss blown by Caecilius to a statue of Serapis starts the debate, in
which, with an admixture of Epicurean science and Neo-academic
scepticism, he assaults the immoralities and credulities of the
Christian sect. He then defends the old religion — in the new
form that had welcomed Serapis— with that tenderness for tradi-
tions to which a sceptical mind sometimes resorts. Octavius, in
reply, asserts the eternal Providence, which even the humble can
know and which pagan poets and philosophers no less than the
Holy Scriptures have attested. The absurd superstitions attributed
falsely to Christians are more than matched by the myths about
the gods, who all, as Euhemerus showed, were nothing but men
of renown deified by their admirers. The real life of Christians,
their true and simple worship, their bravery in affliction, their sure
hope of a resurrection are presented with a quiet fervour that wins
Caecilius. Minucius finds it unnecessary to play his part of
arbiter, and the three friends go on their way rejoicing. The
controversy ends in a smile, like Horace’s satire and Cicero’s
debate on the training of the orator^ — laeti hilaresque discessimus. ’
1 Dessau 2933. ® Octav. 9, 6; 31, 2. ® Sat. ir, i, 86; de orat. i, 62, 265.
38-1
596 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
With the art that conceals art, Minucius has covered in this
dialogue the range of ancient history and Greek philosophy. He
knows his authors, especially the Romans, intimately, though he
mentions or cites but few. In the phrase: ‘sed quatenus indul-
gentes insano atque inepto labori ultra humilitatis nostrae ter-
minos evagamur et in terram proiecti caelum ipsum et ipsa
sidera audaci cupiditate transcendimus’ (5, 6), a familiar echo of
Virgil and two echoes of Horace catch the ear^. If the reader
will turn to the edition of the learned Boenig, he will note re-
miniscences, or possible reminiscences, of virtually all the chief
authors of Rome from Ennius to Tacitus and Juvenal. ‘Quid
gentilium litterarum dimisit intactum?’ remarks Jerome. As in
Tertullian, Fronto’s literary prescriptions have no more weight.
Seneca, unnamed, is present. The epigram ‘Nobody can be as
poor as when he was born’ comes from him^ and the chapter in
which it occurs and that following are shot through with phrases
of Seneca wisely conjoined with those of St Paul. The cultivated
pagan reader who knew his Seneca might well be tempted to
search the Christian scriptures.
Above all, the master of Minucius Felix is Cicero. The plan of
the work is modelled on the De Natura Deorum; hardly a page
fails to contain some glance at the arguments and the spirit of
Cicero’s works. The omission of Cicero’s name, like that of
Seneca’s, is not an attempt to conceal the writer’s borrowings, but
an invitation to compare. With balanced periods and metrical
clausulae his is a Ciceronian style, with some flavour of Seneca
and Tertullian^. If Tertullian is the founder of Christian Latinity,
Minucius is the first in the line of Christian Ciceros.
Pleased by the style of the Octavius^ a pagan reader would also
admire its dramatic character. The surrender of Caecilius is no
foregone conclusion. He is allowed to argue with learned acumen
and with an almost blasphemous satire at the expense of the
Christian’s transcendent <^d^. Indeed, Minucius goes so far in
his tolerance towards the adversary that he has been accused
himself either of an ignorance of Christian dogma or of the delicate
scepticism of a Renan. But Minucius is not telling his readers the
whole story. He is tempting them to enquire further. As St Paul
cites ‘certain of your own poets,’ so Minucius® summons Virgil
and the host of Greek philosophers to testify to the indwelling
presence of the one God. That there is no mention of the name of
1 Jen. VI, 1355 Od. I, 22, 10 sq.y 3, 38 sq.
® Octav. 36, 55 cf. de prov. h, 6. ® Monceaux, op. cit. i, p. 507 -
* Octav. 10, 3-5. ® Octav. 19-20.
XVII, ly] MINUCIUS FELIX 597
Christ nor any exposition of the inner articles of the Christian
faith need surprise us no more than the failure to name Seneca or
Cicero. He is not addressing some persecuting emperor or
proconsul nor the anima naturaliter Christiana of humble folk,
but presenting the new faith as worthy the attention of an anima
naturaliter philosofhica. There is finally, perhaps, an autobio-
graphic element in the dialogue of Minucius. The debate between
his two friends is one that at some time had gone on in his own
mind.
The work of Minucius best suits the times and the entourage
of the tolerant Severus Alexander^. Though the writer is ap-
parently unacquainted with Clement of Alexandria, who was
evidently unacquainted with him, the two are peers in their
courteous treatment of the pagan past. Minucius may have
borrowed from Tertullian much of his information about pagan
rites and superstitions, abstaining from giving his source as he
abstained from citing Cicero, Seneca and numerous other pagans,
but the supposition of an earlier source, and that a Latin source,
used independently by Tertullian and Minucius® has too quickly
been ruled out of court.
The brief dialogue of Minucius was not awarded the influence
that its merits deserved. It has come down to us in only one
manuscript, in which it appears as a final book of the very different
work of Arnobius — z torso, perhaps, of a collection of the Latin
apologetes. Lactantius® and Jerome^ recognized its importance,
but with the works of these founders of Christian humanism on
a grander scale at hand, the tiny masterpiece of Minucius passed
from view. Boethius, too, in his Consolatio Philosophiae furnished
the Middle Ages with a more sumptuous example of a philo-
sophical approach to Christian revelation. For all that, the
uniqueness of the Octavius remains.
IV. FROM THE SEVERI TO VALERIAN
In the age of varied turmoil that succeeded the momentary
calm of the reign of Severus Alexander, polite letters did not
wholly disappear. The Historia Augusta states that the Younger
Maximinus, a beautiful barbarian, was well trained in the arts by
his teachers, and the three Gordians (238-244) are represented
as cultivated noblemen. The eldest of them converted the poems
1 So J. J. De Jong, Apologetiek en Christendom in den Octavius, etc.
p. 4 sq. ® W. Hartel, Zeitschr. f.. osterr. Gym. xx, 1869, p. 367.
® Div. Inst. V, I, 22. ^ de Fir, III. p, 58; Ep. 70, 5.
598 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
of Cicero— Marius, Alcyonae, Uxorius, Nilus znd. the translation of
Aratus — into modern style, and wrote a long epic with Antoninus
Pius and Marcus Aurelius for heroes. He also composed eulogies
in prose on all the Antonine Emperors, thus making his own
‘ mirror of the prince.’ The ancient authors — ^Plato and Aristotle,
Cicero and Virgil — ^were the constant companions of his thought^.
His son Gordian II, a capable administrator of elegant tastes but
loose living, wrote verse and prose that showed both talent and
decadence — the work of one who was ‘abandoning his own
genius^.’ Gordian III, a merry and lovable youth, was also dis-
tinguished in letters, while the noble Balbinus was reputed
eminent in oratory and the first poet of his time — an easy com-
pliment.
This sketch of the literary achievements of the Roman emperors
up to nearly the middle of the third century is taken from the much-
questioned Historia Avgusta — generally damned and generally
used. It purports to be a collection of lives of the emperors
from Hadrian to Carus and his sons written by six authors —
Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Vulcacius Gallicanus, Aelius
Lampridius, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus. In some of
the lives Diocletian is addressed, in others Constantine. Gn the
face of it these writers lived in the age between Diocletian and
Constantine, or in some cases, perhaps, somewhat later. They
wrote partly, as it seems to the present writer, with the object
of constructing those ‘mirrors of the prince’ of which Roman
emperors were obviously fond. ‘Te cupidum veterum impera-
torum esse perspeximus,’ says Capitolinus to Diocletian^, and
Lampridius declares of Constantine that he adopted the virtues
of his imperial ancestors for his own^. A note of warning also
appears, in the fashion of Tertullian and Lactantius®. Whether
each author treated all the emperors it is impossible to say. Some
compiler, apparently, selected what he thought the best lives for
his purpose and published a collection of them, presumably with
additions, conflations and errors of his own. Various eminent
scholars, however, favour the theory that the whole affair is a
literary artifice used by a propagandist (whatever his propaganda
may have been) who invented the high-sounding names of the
putative authors and assigned them at random to the Lives^. Even
1 S.H.A. Gord. ires, 7. « Ih. 18-20. » S.H.A. Op. Macr. 15, 4.
^ Hel. 2, 4. See also 14, i ; 17, 7; 18, 4. See L. K. Born, The Education
of a Christian Prince by Desiderius Erasmus, pp. 83—4.
HeK 14, I (to Constantine); Avid. Cass. 8, i (to Diocletian).
* See the Appendix on Sources.
XVII, ly] THE JUGUSTJN HISTORT 599
if this is so, the fiction is drawn, at least in part, from actual
writings, both Greek and Latin, of the third century. We may
be sure at least of an imperial chronicle^ from Augustus to
Diocletian and of the biographical works of Marius Maximus
and Aelius Junius Cordus.
Marius Maximus is mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus®
and is, apparently, identical with that L. Marius Maximus
Perpetuus Aurelianus who was consul under Severus Alexander.
He wrote biographies of the emperors from Nerva to Elagabalus,
thus bringing the work of Suetonius up to his own times.
Suetonius was the natural model for the plan and stjrle of his
works, and for their uncritical information, plain and spicy,
rumoured and true, in the manner of a modern journalist —
‘mytho-historical volumes’ is the apt designation in the Historia
Augusta^. At the same time he must have held up the moral
mirror to history now and then, since Constantine had read in him
that it was better for a State to have a bad ruler surrounded by
good advisers than a good one surrounded by bad"^.
Aelius Junius Cordus® is blamed for his excessive interest in
scabrous tales, fabulous omens and petty statistics®. But the
startling anecdote may still have its value. Although we may not
be sure that the elder Maximinus wore his wife’s bracelet for a
ring, smashed horses’ teeth with his fist or their legs with his heel,
and consumed a keg of wine and sixty pounds of meat a day, yet
from these stories we may perhaps with some confidence infer
that this giant barbarian set people’s tongues wagging.
In this third century Marius Maximus and Aelius Junius
Cordus may not have stood alone; indeed if all the names cited
in the Historia Augusta are those of genuine writers they lived in
what was veritably an aetas Suetoniana. Gargilius Martialis is
credited with biographies of Severus Alexander and other em-
perors'^. Cassiodorus included in his select monastic library his
work on gardens and the medicinal properties of plants, which is
also mentioned by Servius. It is possible that this writer is to be
identified with the man whose military career is attested by a fine
inscription of a.d. 260®,
^ D. Magie, The Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Loeb), i, p. xxi; Schanz-
Hosius-Kriiger, Gesch. d. rom. Litteratur^, iii, § 545; N. H. Baynes, The
Historia Augusta, its Date and Purpose, pp. 68—70.
2 xxviii, 4, 14. ® S.H.A. ^ad. tyr. (Firmus, etc.), I, 2.
* S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 65, 4. ® Schanz, op. cit. % 545, 547.
® S.H.A. Clod. Alh. 5, 10; Op. Macr. i, 3-5; Max. duo 29, lo*, 31;
Gord. tres, 21, 3—4.
^ S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 37, 9; Prob. 2, 7.
® Dessau 2767.
6oc LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
Among the important scholars of that period is Censorinus,
who in A.D. 238, lacking the money for a birthday present for his
friend A. Caerellius, sent him instead, a learned treatise on birth-
days, with their religious, educational, physiological, astrological
and chronological implications. Helenius Aero comments on
Terence, Persius (?) and Horace. The work preserved under
Aero’s name is spurious, but the helpful commentary of Porphyrio
has come down in its genuine form. Grammarians of repute are
C. Julius Romanus and Marius Plotius Sacerdos. C. Junius
Solinus compiled, with large drafts on Suetonius and Pliny the
Elder, an encyclopaedia of wondrous tales. Despite its second-
hand character it became for the Middle Ages one of the great
ancient books.
Another work profoundly esteemed in the Middle Ages is the
Disiicha Catonis, four books of moral admonitions in couplets. The
author, whose name, whether by accident or intention, suggests
the elder Cato and his Carmen de Moribus^ is a pagan, but sound
sense and pithy phrase are mated with Christian humility in its
utterances. No wonder that the little work became a text-book in
medieval schools. The pagan is betrayed in the maxims on woman,
but the age of Chaucer and Jean de Meun would hardly count
them heresy. There are numerous manuscripts of these books
from the ninth century on ; the work was turned into Latin prose
and into the vernacular of all the important countries in Europe.
Excerpts were made and numerous commentators spun its
epigrams into sermons. It captivated the medieval mind from the
beginning of its history to the end, as no other pagan work could
do, save only Virgil.
If we return to Christian literature, the first figure is Cyprian.
The outer life of Cyprian was full of turmoil in the age of intensi-
fied persecution under Decius and Valerian — within was a more
than Stoic placidissima -pax. He was born in Africa a pagan, and
was well trained in rhetoric and the kindred arts. After his con-
version he became a priest and (r. 248—9) bishop of Carthage.
When the persecution of Decius began in 249, he left his flock
for their best interests. He was active in promoting the unity of
the Church, and in opposing the schism of Novatian (p. 540). He
advocated firm yet lenient measures in the case of those who had
fallen away from the faith and wished to be re-instated. Returning
to his charge, he was sentenced and exiled during the new per-
secution under Valerian in 2 57. Brought back to Carthage, he
was tried again and suffered martyrdom in 258.
Cyprian’s writings are a mirror of the Church of his day. They
XVII, IV] CYPRIAN 6oi
all respond to the need of the moment, A work written to a friend
before the persecution of Decius began (Ad Donatum) presents in
a calm and pleasant tone, with many borrowings from Minucius
Felix;, the arguments that should turn a young man of good
education to the new faith. When the storm breaks loose, we see
in Cyprian’s Letters, his tractates and his sermons the record of
the wise bishop’s concern for his churches and his ability to
manage their affairs even when parted from them. He is also in
touch with movements in Rome. His most characteristic work,
Be CathoUcae Ecdesiae C/Kito/e, whether or not he regards the
Roman Pontiff as the head of Christendom, proclaims that prin-
ciple of solidarity which has always been at the heart of the Catholic
faith. In his apologetic works (Ad Bemetrianum and §luod idola dii
non sint) he answers the familiar charge that Christians were
responsible for the calamities of the world. Highly characteristic
are the three books of Testimonia, in which the Scriptures are
searched for evidence bearing on Judaism, on the nature of Christ
and on various points in Christian practice. He thus paves the
way for Prosper of Aquitaine, Abelard, Peter Lombard and other
medieval collectors of ‘sentences.’
The number of manuscripts of Cyprian and of works wrongly
attributed to him presents a situation unique in Christian Latin
literature. Some of the pseudepigrapha may be contemporary.
Some are in vulgar Latin. Naturally this Corpus Cyprianum has
proved a paradise for investigators of ‘ Sty listikd
The style of Cyprian shows his training in rhetoric. He
has metrical clausulae as strict as Cicero’s. St Augustine, in his
manual of a new Rhetoric, at once Christian and Ciceronian, cites
only Cyprian and Ambrose for examples of the three styles — genus
submissum, temperatum, grande^. But Cyprian does not indulge in
display. Ciceronian art and Christian straightforwardness have
become one in his clear and simple style. Holy Writ furnishes the
source of his thought and the spirit, if not the form, of his diction.
Cyprian’s two chief models in Christian literature are Minucius
Felix and Tertullian. For the latter, despite his divagations, he
had a hearty admiration. ‘Hand me the master^,’ he would daily
say to his servant. Tertullian, shorn of his heresy, furnishes the
substance of many of Cyprian’s observations and the plan of
several of his discourses®. The charge of plagiarism would be
1 de Doctrina Christiana, iv, 45—50.
® Da magistrum (Hieron. de Fir. III. 5 _ 3 )-
® See L. Bayard, Tertullien et S. Cyprien, for extracts from both authors
on the same subject.
6o2 LATIN literature of the west [chap.
absurd — arguments once delivered to the saints become common
property. Cyprian’s rewriting of Tertullian suggests the en-
deavours of Dryden and Pope to make Chaucer speak anew to
their age. In both cases the tart vigour of the original is lost in
the studied neatness of the reproduction. But there is more
in Cyprian’s adaptation than this. Let us take an example.
In Ws treatise De cultu feminarum^ Tertullian starts promptly
with a slap on the face for his fair hearer, daughter of Eve, the
devil’s gateway. Cyprian, imitating the work in his De habitu
Virginu7n.t praises the saintly maidens, who are the flower of the
Church. But let them not dress too stylishly. For young men
will gaze and sigh and conceive secret desires, ' so that even if you
yourself are not ruined you will ruin others.' After the exordium
of Tertullian, a woman would feel indignant or amused, or both;
after Cyprian’s she would reverently obey the call of noblesse oblige,
Cyprian has translated his master not only into an urbane Cicero-
nian diction, but into a wise urbanity of soul. Here speaks a great
Christian teacher and father of his flock. Tertullian’s disordered
outbursts give place in Cyprian to a reasoned and effective art.
The Church did well in canonizing Cyprian, quite apart from
his heroic death. He, like Tertullian, held open the Christian
mind for revelations from the Paraclete, but the vision must come
from within the united Church. Cyprian’s greatness was recog-
nized at once by the deacon Pontius, the author of his biography,
and many others pay in their turn a homage that some writers
to-day seem reluctant to apply. Lactantius emphasizes his
eloquence, the happy gift for explanation and his powers of
persuasion^. Jerome recommends the reading of Cyprian along
with the Bible^, and finds it unnecessary to speak of his works,
‘cum sole clariora sint®.’ Prudentius finds the spirit of the prophets
alive in him again and asserts that his fame shall endure as long
as men and books survive. With a fine perception of the literary
art of Cyprian, he weaves for his ‘martyr’s crown’ not, as were
also fitting, a simple ballad, but a stately Horatian odeL
Novatian, the schismatic, a man of cultivation and the most
celebrated of the Roman clergy of his day, wrote two letters to
Cyprian®, and also a discourse on the Trinity which has been
preserved among the writings of Tertullian, In his work De cibis
ludakis, which shows the symbolic character of the animals whose
flesh the Jews refused to eat, Novatian paved the way for the
wholesale allegorization of animals that prevailed in the Middle
^ Div. Inst. Yy I, 25. ® Ep. 107, 12.
® de Fir. III. 67. * Peristeph. 13. ® Cyprian, Ep. 30; 36.
XVII, IV] NOVATIAN 603
Ages. He was the first Christian author who wrote exclusively
in Latin.
CoMMODiAN, whose date seems now to have been definitely
placed in the third century, though perhaps later than he is here
treated^, is the first to be recorded in the history of Christian
poetry, although his poetry seems curiously and wonderfully
made. The titles of his two v^oxks, Instructiones and Carmen
Apologeticum, bespeak that secondary inspiration of the Muse
which consists of the metaphrase of subjects long popular in prose.
'Th.e Instrucliones consists of eighty short sections divided into two
books. Acrostics indicate the subjects of the several sections, the
Lst of which bears the mysterious title Nomen Gasei, which might
mean, ‘The name of the inhabitant of Gaza.’ The acrostic,
beginning at the last line and reading backwards, reveals the poet
as CoMMoDiANus Mendigus Christi. The other poem, not
known till its discovery by Cardinal Pitra in 1852, bears no
ascription, but its style marks it as the product of the same author.
The words in its subscription — Tractatus Sancti Episcopi — may
indicate that the Beggar of Christ was also a Bishop.
Both poems are composed in what seems like rude hexameters
of thirteen to seventeen syllables which may always be divided
into six feet, but which ride rough-shod over quantity up to the
last two feet. Since some sixty fairly decent hexameters are found
in the course of the two poems,® Commodian might possibly have
employed throughout a more or less regular hexameter had he so
chosen. Though he censures the study of the pagan authors, he
himself had read some of them; Terence, Lucretius, Virgil,
Horace, and perhaps also Sallust, Cicero, Tibullus and Ovid, may
be traced in his verse. In the very passage that expresses his
condemnation of the pagans, he finds a phrase of Virgil useful®.
His grammatical forms and syntax, however, are barbarous
enough. On the whole it would appear that Commodian is not
a person of cultivation who condescended to an ultra-humble style,
but one who, after a certain schooling, adopted a ’diction that
seemed natural to him. The same sort of limping hexameter is
found in African inscriptions of the period’*.
Moreover, as has recently been pointed out®, it is better not to
^ See A. Fr. van Katwijk, Lexicon Commodianeum, p. xxv.
2 P. de Labriolle, Hist. lift. lot. Chret. p. 244.
® Carm. Apol. 587 (ed. Dombart); Insanumque forum (Georg, ii, 502).
^ P. Monceaux, Hist. lit. lat. Chrit. p. 75.
® A. Amatucci, Storia della letter atura latina cristiana, p. 103; Africa
Romana, p. 198.
6 o 4 LATIN literature of the west [chap.
calculate elaborately the relations of this verse of Gommodian to
the hexameter of Virgil, but while recognizing that relation in a
general way, to see in his long line a combination of two short
ones. The first has from five to seven syllables, the second from
eight to ten, and their boundary line is in almost all cases what,
if these were regular hexameters, would be the penthemimeral
caesura. Elision is not observed, and word-accent, not metrical
ictus, determines the rhythm. A line like
Rex autem iniquus, qui obtinet ilium ut audit
cannot be poured into the Virgilian mould. If one scans it with
attention merely to word-accents, and scans the whole poem in
the same way, the shackles fall from Commodian’s verse. It is
read no longer with torture, but with pleasure. Our poet is
continuing the efforts for simplicity introduced by Septimius
Serenus and the other experimenters with such metres as the
Faliscan. He is returning, via Virgil, to something like the
bipartite Saturnian of ancient times.
In both contents and spirit, the Carmen Apologeticum is the
more interesting of the two poems. It is courteous in tone, pre-
senting not an attack, but an invitation to come and see. He
therefore sketches the history of Israel down to the Incarnation,
adds that of the early Church, and portrays the struggle of Christ
and anti-Christ in the last days. In the Instructiones, he pictures
the pagan gods in sarcastic terms, impaling them neatly on his
acrostics — a good mnemonic device — ^which fixes the revolting
image on the believer’s mind. The sections on the gods are
followed by exhortations addressed to the unbelieving, and in the
second book the varieties of Christians are described — the
catechumen and priest, the true and the hypocrite, the sober and
the drunken, the silent and the gossiping, martyrs divinely called
and ill-advised aspirants for martyrdom.
Though our poet is heart and soul a believer, his theology falls
into the Patripassionist heresy and revels in the fancies of the
Chiliasts. In fact the theme that in both poems stirs his imagina-
tion is the end of the world, when the Thousand Years are over.
He pictures^ the last days in words of fire that burn through the
stubble of his verse. The length of the passage makes it a little
poem by itself of an essentially epic character. Commodian, not
Juvencus, is the first of the Christian Latin poets to write epic.
The poems of Commodian, despite their crudities, had a vogue
of some two hundred years, Gennadius, though admiring the
^ Carm. Jpol. 791 (ed. Dombart) to the end.
XVII, V] COMMODIAN 605
moral integrity of Commodian, found his perversion of Biblical
prophecies a cause of amazement for those outside the fold and
of despair for those within^. And the author of the Decretum
Gelasianum\ by putting the works on his index, showed the Beggar
of Christ to the door.
V. FROM VALERIAN TO DIOCLETIAN
In the period of unutterable confusion that follows Valerian,
Gallienus (260—8) stands out as a lover oi belles lettres and every-
thing Greek. He is an orator, a poet, and, with the possible
exception of Helius Verus®, the most interesting cynic in Roman
history since Petronius^. He liked to make merry while the world
was going to pieces. Yet, like Petronius, he could act with vigour
on occasion, and his humbling of the Senate, which had become
the chorus in the Roman tragedy, paved the way for Diocletian.
The most enlightened act of Gallienus was his patronage of the
philosopher Plotinus and his plans for founding a Platonic com-
monwealth in Campania.
A bit of the Emperor’s poetry is given in his Life (i i), a brief,
impromptu epithalamium delivered at the marriage of his nephew.
The smooth hexameters have a touch of humour, with another in
an additional couplet preserved in one of the manuscripts of our
present Anthologia Latincfi. It may well be that many of the pieces
preserved in the Codex Salmasianus go back to the third century.
Here may belong the diverse rhetorical variations on themes from
Virgil, the colourless Efistula of Dido to Aeneas, and the debate
between cook and baker entitled Vespc^\ this piece, the product of
some strolling mountebank, has touches of parody of the pastoral
and anticipates the medieval conflktus with its diverse themes.
Definitely of the third century are the pieces assigned, if they are
rightly assigned, as seems likely, to Nemesian’.
M. Aurelius Olympicus Nemesianus of Carthage flourished
during the reign of the Emperor Carus and his sons Numerianus
and Carinus (282-4). Numerian was an orator of renown and
reputedly the best poet of the day. He is said to have competed
in prize contests even against Nemesian, and when an iambic poet,
^ de Vir. III. 15. * Migne, Pat. Lat. nx, 163.
3 See his life in the Hist. Jug. Oblivious of the tendencies that culminated
in Fronto, he was fond of Apicius and Ovid, and called Martial his Virgil
*^Lh.A. Gall. Duo, 1 1-18. See Gibbon, chap. x.
3 Riese, Jnth. Lat.
® 7^.1,199. T ij 883-4.
6o6
LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
Aurelius Apollinaris, presented a eulogy of his father, Numerian,
we are told, totally eclipsed this performance with one of his own^.
Nemesian perhaps aspired to be the Virgil of his day — at least
we see signs of pastoral, didactic and epic poetry in his work.
Epic exists as a mere promise. In his didactic poem on hunting®
dedicated to the sons of Carus after his death in 283, he vows that
he will next sing their praises. But the panegyric designed never
came to fruition. In 284 Numerianus was murdered by his father-
in-law, and Carinus at war with Diocletian was killed by his own
troops. The extant fragment of the Cynegetka true to the
technique of Virgil, and is at least as attractive as its Augustan
precursor, the Cynegetica of Grattius.
The eclogues of Nemesian were long attributed to Calpurnius,
whose poems they adjoin in our manuscript source, but evidence
both external and internal attest their separateness. Nemesian has
little of the inventiveness of Calpurnius, but in spite of his close
imitations of both Calpurnius and Virgil — mere mosaics of their
phrases— he has virtues of his own. The first eclogue, in honour
of his patron, is a stately bit of liturgy. The second portrays
an unseemly pastoral passion. Like the fourth, on two shepherds
who sharing ‘equal frenzy for a different sex’ are tricked by
their darlings, it betrays a sad lack of humour.
The best is the third. Nyctilus, Mycon and Amyntas steal up as
Pan sleeps, and try to play his pipe. Pan, awakening, promises a
song. His theme is the birth of Bacchus and the invention of wine.
Old Silenus holds in his arms the restless infant, who plucks his
bristles, pats his snub nose and tweaks his pointed ears. The scene
changes to his manhood, when he bids the satyrs tread the grapes.
They drink the new liquor and the fun begins. They frolic and
dance and chase the airy nymphs. This poem is Nemesian’s one
masterpiece. He has taken the framework of Virgil’s sixth
eclogue, relieved it of its allegory and panegyric, and told a merry
tale vividly. Fontenelle thought he had surpassed his model.
VI. FROM DIOCLETIAN TO CONSTANTINE
The great Diocletian, though at least learned enough to quote
VirgiP, was not distinguished by a love of literature. In his reign
pagan Latin literature was at its last gasp. Typical of its condition
are the effusions of the Panegyrists (see below, p. 712). We turn
^ S.H.A. Carus, ii.
® S.H.A. Carus, 13, 3.
® Cynegetica, 63-85.
XVII, vi] NEMESIAN 607
ra^er to Christian Latin literature. The Persecutions under
Diocletian in 303 led to the martyrdom of a curious writer, Bishop
ViCTORiNus OF Pettau in Illyria, whose Commentary on the
Apocalypse was re-edited by Jerome, shorn of heresies in thought
and Style. He revels in the mystic properties of numbers, the
number one thousand included. For like Commodian, he was
a Chiliast.
Arnobius, the author of a novel apology, was born at Sicca
Veneria in the province of Africa not far from the birthplace of
Apuleius, Madauros, on the road to Carthage. He flourished
under Diocletian and practised his profession of rhetorician illus-
triously in his native place. Until late in life a stalwart opponent
of the new faith, he was suddenly converted by a dream, and like
Saul of Tarsus, changed from an assailant to a champion. When
his Bishop, suspicious of such an ally, demanded proof of his
loyalty, h.e vfTote his work Adversus Nationes.
Whether the Bishop was satisfied with the proof has been
questioned more than once. Arnobius quotes the Scriptures
rarely, proclaims that the soul must win its immortality by
merit, and asserts that the pagan gods continue to exist though
relegated to the rank of demons. He takes a sour view of human
qualities, of the liberal arts and of the ability of the mind to arrive
at truth. Morose, sceptical and ill-versed in Christian doctrine,
he earned for his work a place among the Catholicis vitanda in the
Gelasian list^ and an unenviable estimate among most modern
historians of Christian Latin literature. And yet, Jerome, while
aware of the vagaries of Arnobius, calls the books of this treatise
‘most splendid’ (‘ luculentissimos ’) and implies that these ‘hostages
of piety’ accomplished their purpose^. It is time to return to this
verdict.
The work of Arnobius was written during the Persecution of
Diocletian in a.d. 303. The first of the seven books starts with a
vigorous disclaimer of the pagan assertion that the Christian faith
is the cause of the woes of the world. On the contrary it has
brought joy and peace to all mankind. In an ornate Ciceronian
style, with metrical clausulae and a plethora of rhetorical questions,
the writer presents a simple idea deeply felt by him — ^the truth
and purity of Christ’s life and works as seen on the back-
ground of pagan falsity.
But (Book 11) some pagans still hate the Christian faith, though
men of intellect are coming over to it in droves. They have learned
^ Migne, Pat. Lot. Lix, 163.
® Jerome, Chron. p. 231, 14 r??. (Helm).
6o8 LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap.
to put a more moderate estimate on the mind. For despite the
great Plato, the soul is a humble organ. Its every passion is a
door to deaty. It is of a medial and twofold substance— dwelling
all too near the fangs of destruction^.
Here obviously is a refutation in the spirit of Lucretius, and
with a sprinkling of his phrases, of the Platonic proofs of the
immortality of the soul put forth by Cicero in the first book of his
Tusculan Disputations. But this is only half of the argument of
Arnobius. The soul has enough divinity to win its immortality by
the gift and grace of the Almighty Ruler. Arnobius has come into
Christianity through the science of Lucretius, but his deliverer is
not Epicurus, but Christ. He proposes to the pagans a new
reconciliation of science and religion. There are indeed gods, or
angels, or demons, but they are the creations of the one true God;
they are those mediae naturae whom Plato describes in his Timaeus.
Thus Plato plays a part in this reconciliation, though there can
be no truce with his idea of a divine soul in man; and Arnobius
proceeds to depict the littleness of the human soul with a vigour
that recalls Lucretius. His new solution, he says, does not pretend
to explain all moral and metaphysical difficulties. But what
philosopher has explained them? Yet one thing is certain, that
a new fountain of life has been opened®. Man has ever made pro-
gress in government and religion and the arts whereby life has
been built up and given polish — ^the phrase is from Lucretius'^ and
the passage gives Lucretius’ fifth book in a nutshell. Thus has God
prepared the world for the coming of Christ. With brave words
on Christian martyrdom the book ends. This cursory summary
gives no idea of its wealth of illustrations, its pungent sarcasm and
its command of the science of the day.
The remaining books discuss the pagan cults with an assort-
ment of spicy legends from which even Ovid had refrained and
with a wealth of information that make Arnobius one of the happy
hunting-grounds for investigators of Roman religion. The work
ends with a question, Arnobius’ favourite form of expressing an
idea. It contains a challenge to the imperialism of Rome.
These luculentissimi libri had no wide vogue. For the moment
when they were written they filled a need. How much the author
^ II, 27: Onrnh enim passia leti atque inter itus ianua est. Cf. Lucretius i,
1 1 1 2 : ianua leti.
^ II, 32: non longe ah hiatihus mortis et faucihus. Cf. Lucretius V,
leti . . .ianua . . .patet immani et vasto respectat hiatu. ® ii, 64.
* II, 69: artes quibus vita est exstructa et expolita communis. Cf. Lucretius
V, 332: artes expoliuniur.
XVII, vr] ARNOBIUS AND LACTANTIUS 609
knew of the Christian scriptures or the doctrines of the Church
is quite beside the point. He knows his ancient authors profoundly,
Lucretius above all. He writes with a rich vocabulary partly
classic, partly popular, completely African— for in Africa he lived
—in a style as near tx) that of Cicero as he could come. His
verbosities and interminable interrogations cannot spoil the
brilliance of his performance. After the triumph of the Church
under Constantine, the need of such an apology was no longer
felt Arnobius was superseded by his pupil Lactantius who,
resuming the attitude of Minucius Felix towards pagan culture,
laid the foundations of Christian humanism.
Lactantius, likewise a pagan at the start, was given by
Diocletian the chair of rhetoric at Nicomedia in Bithynia. When
he, and Rome, became Christian, Constantine appointed him tutor
of his son Crispus. The Christian orator needed no more to appeal
for the Emperor’s mercy; instead he became his spokesman in
matters affecting the new culture, somewhat as Virgil and Horace
proclaimed the higher poli cies of Augustus, which they themselves
had taught him. His impetuous work de mortibus fersecutorum
is at once a kind of philosophy, or at least an apocalypse, of his-
tory, and like various works that we have discussed, a moral
warning to the prince. If he wrote no epic on his master, he may
somehow stand behind the famous Oratio ad Sanctos, in which
Constantine gave his imperial sanction to the Christian interpre-
tation of Virgil’s Messianic eclogue.
Lactantius’ greatest work, the Divinae Institutiones, is dedicated
to Constantine, and intended by its author as a Christian counter-
part of those ‘Institutes’ that lay down the principles of the Civil
Law. In essence it is rather like Quintilian’s ‘Institution,’ or
training, of the orator. While dealing only indirectly with the seven
liberal arts, Lactantius assumes at every turn by the quotation or
the adaptation of the ancient authors that the study of them is a
necessary precursor to the education of a Christian. While
criticizing them vigorously at various points he does not reject
but absorbs them. His great model is Cicero, whose style he
comes near to reproducing and whose thoughts he translates into
Christian. The writer feels himself another Cicero as he addresses
the new age, which in the West in many respects is an aetas
Ciceroniana.
The work falls into seven books. The first, de Falsa Religioner
is like the reconciliations of science and religion of our day, save
that religion is the true worship of the soul that underlies the
superstition of mythology, and science the new Christian truth
C.A.H. XII 39
6io LATIN LITERATURE OF THE WEST [chap. XVII, vi
that clears the ancient fables away. The second, de Origine Erroris,
deals with that primitive idolatry which nevertheless showed
flashes of the vision of the one, true God. The third, De Falsa
Sapientia^ would be called to-day ‘An Introduction to Philosophy’
— ^written from a Catholic point of view. Master Cicero and the
New Academy are much in evidence, yet Lucretius, whom he
doubtless learned to admire from Arnobius, is treated, despite his
patent falsities, with understanding and even courtesy. The fourth
book, De Vera Sapientia et Religiom^ presents in an informal
fashion the doctrines of the Christian faith. The fifth, De lustitia^
deals with personal ethics, and the principles of social justice.
The sixth, De Fero CultUy is not an exposition of liturgy (as one
might hope) but a plea for the sincerity of worship. The seventh,
De Vita Beata, is a new interpretation of Cicero’s arguments on
immortality in the Tusculans, set forth in Christian terms.
Despite slight imperfections in its theology, this ‘Training of
the Christian’ at once became a standard work and a monument
of the reign of Constantine. Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus and
Isidore acclaimed it. A steady stream of manuscript copies flowed
down through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance; it was
among the first books printed in Italy.
The period in which we have been following the course of Latin
literature from the age of the Antonines to that of Constantine,
while barren of works of the first order, is not in itself a barren
epoch, but one alive with new impulses and achievements. It
begins with a unified Roman world in which there is one literature,
in either Greek or Latin. It witnesses the decay of pagan letters,
which had lost their meaning, and the rise of a Christian literature,
full of a new meaning yet mainly dependent for its art on ancient
models. At the end of the period there is a weakening of the bonds
that held together East and West and of those that in literature
as in government connected the provinces with Rome. But amid
such dissolutions the elements of a new Roman unity may be
discerned, later apprehended by St Augustine in his vision of the
City of God.
CHAPTER XVIIl
LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE
HALF OF THE EMPIRE
I. THE GREEK NOVEL AND RHETORIC
G reek Literature at the beginning of the third century,
apart from the Christian schools (see above, pp. 476 jyy.),
has no outstanding name or striking personality, no work of any
great note and very seldom one with even as much as a suggestion
of poetry. It was not that any of the ancient forms were neglected.
There was plenty of eagerness shown in the maintenance and
restoration of theatres. Odeums and play-houses of various kinds ;
but they were chiefly for performances of mimes, and for farces
such as parodies of Christian baptism, and though a tragedy of
Euripides might sometimes still be seen holding the stage the
real spirit of the theatre was dying. It is true enough, also, that
while, as may be observed as a sign of the times, the Georgies of
Virgil were translated into Greek hexameters, many didactic
poems continued to be written. In one of these, On Fishing
{Halieuticd)^ the author, Oppian, admittedly shows very fair skill
in his descriptions of the homes and habits of fish, and he won
thereby the imperial favour of a coin of gold for each verse; but
the other poem which has come down to us under his name,
though it is not by him (the Cynegetied)^ would deserve very
little attention did not the mss. contain miniatures of the animals
described and even a picture of Apamea, the author’s birthplace.
In this age of prolific verse-making epic poems also swarmed^.
Many a sand-heap in the Fayum has been found full of scraps
of papyrus covered with copies of a Soterichus, Pisander, Try-
phiodorus, Zoticus or some other manufacturer of hexameters all
of the same level. The craze for exertions of this kind went so far
that a certain Nestor of Laranda sought to emulate Homer by
producing an Iliad in words chosen in such a way that in none of
the twenty-four books did there once occur its distinguishing letter
of the alphabet. It may well be doubted whether at any time so
many thousands of verses have been written with so little creative
imagination; but it must be remembered contemporary taste
1 A list of them will be found in Ghrist-Schmid, Geschichte der griech.
Literatur,ii,%
6 i 2 GREEK literature AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
required that all the poesy of which the age was capable should
appear in prose in order to make it musical and florid.
With the Greek orators of this generation the art of speaking
and writing concerned itself less and less with the mind, and
speakers set themselves up more and more as ‘melodists' and
rivals of lyric poets. Even their delivery consisted of a rhythmical
declamation of a very artificial kind. They followed a prosody
which the living language of their day no longer obeyed, and by a
form of virtuosity exploited the tone and modulations of their
speech, in this way securing their effects on audiences by means
which were largely musical. At a time when so much pleasure
was taken in listening to various wind and string instruments, the
lecturer was delighted if his singing and rhythmical eloquence
was accompanied by the rapturous sounds of the flute. He was
carried away by the music of his own voice, and cared little if his
phrases were fine-sounding that they were almost devoid of
meaning. An adequate idea of these speakers can be formed by
perusing the Lives oj the Sophists as told by their fellow-member
and admirer Philos tratus, an orator who was a native of Lemnos.
One seldom finds an idea of any note or a flash of wit.
Philostratus would have small claim to the space here given
to him were it not for the fact that, in speaking of him, one cannot
help touching on two people of an attractiveness widely different
from his — the beautiful and spirited Julia Domna, the intelligent
and self-willed Empress to whom the orator owed the subject of
at least one of his chief works, and, with her, the Emperor
Septimius Severus himself.
The grandson of an orator resident at Rome in the reign of
Domitian, but born into a family which continued to speak
Punic, the young Septimius Severus at the age of eighteen was
capable of expressing himself in Greek with sufficient fluency to
take part, in spite of his rustic accenP, in public declamations at
his native town of Leptis Magna. Having completed at Athens his
equipment of literature and philosophy, Septimius arrived at
Rome to make himself an orator and advocatus fisci before be-
coming a member of the Senate and commanding the legions of
Pannonia who ultimately raised him to the rank of emperor. As
part of the extraordinary industry of this hard-working man must
be mentioned here the memoirs which he, like Marcus Aurelius,
wrote in Greek, and the fragments of his letters addressed to the
Senate, without any literary grace or charm, but concise, clear and
^ His pronunciation of Latin is said to have remained faulty, see above,
p. 24-
XVIII, I] THE CIRCLE OF JULIA DOMNA 613
to the point. It is not surprising that one so well educated de-
lighted to surround himself with men of letters and preferably with
Greeks, while his wife, Julia Domna, the daughter of the High
Priest of the Sun at Emesa, held a real literary salon upon the
Palatine^. Besides her sister, Julia Maesa, and her two nieces,
Soaemias and the half-Christian Mamaea, many famous writers
and scholars were to be met at her house — the poet Oppian, who
has already been mentioned; Aelian, the honey-tongued story-
teller, engaged in collecting the anecdotes of his Varia Historian
Gordian, who was a poet before he was an emperor; the learned
doctor Sammonicus Serenus, who owned a magnificent collection
of books ; sometimes Galen when his great age permitted him to
be present; and many other intimates of the Palatine who figure
in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus.
But Julia Domna, the impassioned Syrian, ‘ tem^raire jusqu’a
I’utopie’ in Renan’s phrase^, must have had an almost classical
literary taste. When the orator Hermogenes started a reaction
against excessive regard for rhythm and musical effects in oratory
(cf. p. 612), Julia Domna seems to have approved a return to a
feeling for moderation and imitation of the ancient models ; at all
events, Philostratus in one of his letters clothes in the form of a
learned treatise observations possibly intended to divert the
Empress from an inclination towards an old-fashioned purism in
literature, of which he disapproved.
As has often been pointed out, the advance of the new religions
evoked an opposition from pagan intellectuals who sought to give
new life to their old cults by allying them with philosophic creeds
and especially with a theology of sun-worship which spread ever
more widely in highly diverse forms, while in ethics they preached
a Pythagorean asceticism. The Empress herself, who from youth
up had been initiated in the hellenized beliefs of the great Semitic
sanctuaries, and whose circle at Rome included thinkers from all
parts of the Empire, was as it were predestined to become the
high priestess of a syncretic polytheism. Realizing the need of
finding a historical figure fitted to counter the propaganda of
subversive gospels, she sought particularly to revive the memory
of a hero of pagan hagiology, Apollonius of Tyana, who lived
under the first two Flavians and had left behind him in Greek
lands the reputation of a saint and wandering prophet drawing
1 She was honoured in Greece as a second Demeter and a rival of the
goddess Pallas.
2 MarcJurlle^ p. 495: “Osant ce que jamais Romame n’avait os^, ces
syriennes ‘rfevent de S^miramis et de Nitocris.’” See Dio lxxviii, 23.
6 i 4 GREEK literature and PHILOSOPHY [chap.
multitudes to himself by his holy life and by so many beneficent
miracles that the magicians of the East used to invoke his aid and
issue the formulas of their incantations under his name. In time,
he was looked upon as the greatest of all sorcerers. Chancing
to come upon the memoirs of one who claimed to have been
a confidant of this Apollonius— Damis a Babylonian — ^Julia
Domna was impressed by the favourable light in which the
charactet of the wise man was presented. Far from having
practised sorcery this true follower of Pythagoras, according to
his disciple, had taught the purest of religions, and in India
especially, a country which long before Egypt and in diiferent
fashion had enjoyed the favour of divine wisdom, had found the
evidence and inspiration to support his faith. As if to call attention
to what Damis had recounted concerning India, some Brahmans
and Samanians in the time of Julia Domna, taking advantage
of the means of travel provided by a renewal of trade with Central
Asia, came on a deputation to the religious propagandists in
Syria, particularly to Bardaisan, and it can be seen from Porphyry
that they succeeded in obtaining a hearing^.
In any case the Empress, wishing to spread the knowledge of
the model character of the life of Apollonius, the holy man of
Tyana, and of the source of his wisdom in an Eastern country
which worshipped the sun, entrusted the memoirs of Damis to
Philostratus, one of the habitues of her parties whom we have
already had occasion to mention. On the canvas provided the
court hagiographer boldly embroidered his theme, borrowing
extensively so as to unite in the eight books of his edifying
biography the features best suited to bring out the importance and
virtues of his hero: his love for his fellow-men, his profound pity
for human suffering, his deeply-rooted religion which showed it-
self in the worship of all the gods and of the divine Sun in parti-
cular, and in his adoption of the Pythagorean prohibition of the
sacrifice of living creatures.
However full it may be of fine-drawn speeches little to modern
taste, the book was undeniably successful. Opponents of Christi-
anity were not slow to see what use could be made of it in com-
bating the propaganda of the new religion, if not in advancing a
pagan syncretism. The story of Apollonius, accepted as true,
could be set against the Gospel as a life noble, upright, godly,
unselfish, and conspicuous for its miracles and good works: the
At least Porphyry found in this connection the immediate confirmation
of an ‘epistle of Apollonius to the Brahmans’ (frag, nxxviri, Hercher); see
Porphyry, Ilept quoted by Stobaeus, Ed. i, 3, 56 and ^ abstin. iv, 1 7.
XVIII, i] PHILOSTRATUS, HELIODORUS 615
apologists of Greek culture did not fail to exploit it, and the result
was that Philostratus, second-rate story-teller though he was,
became one of the most famous of the Greek novelists.
It may seem strange to connect with edifying work of this
nature the ten books of the Loves of Theagenes and Chariclea or
Aethiopica. Certainly at first sight there is nothing but agree-
able diversion in the story of Chariclea, an Ethiopian princess
abandoned at birth by her mother, the queen Persina, then
carried off to Delphi to be brought up there by the Greek Callicles,
subsequently enamoured of the handsome Thessalian Theagenes
and by the unkindness of fate involved with him in the severest
trials of various kinds until she finally appears before the king
Hydaspes, her father. Then, on the point of being sacrificed to the
Sun with her faithful lover, she reveals herself, recovers her
rank and with it the right to marry the man she loves. But, on a
closer view, it will be seen that Heliodorus, the author of this
seeming story of adventure, is almost as much concerned to
glorify the fierce chastity with which he endows his virgin heroine
as to demonstrate his skill in the art of tying and untying the
threads of an exciting plot. His descriptions of Virtue often
become homilies, and, until the final words of his denouement,
he exhibits a religious feeling which is too characteristic of his age
to be regarded as a traditional feature of his literary form^.
Nothing is known about the author of Daphnis and Chloe-^ and,
this pastoral being unique of its kind, any attempt to determine
its own peculiar merits must be guess-work. As for Longus him-
self, although it is generally agreed that his work is to be included
with those of the orators of the time of Julia Domna, there is little
agreement about the type of society in which he wrote. Some are
impressed by the discovery in him of touches of a genuine and
almost rustic feeling for nature, while others insist that, from the
very opening scene, the balance of melodious antitheses betrays
the sophisticated pastoral of the salon with its bells and ribbons
affectedly bedecking the necks of lambkins, sleek and white
as snow. But, in speaking of Daphnis and Chloe, it is hardly
possible not to give oneself up to the pleasure of admiration
and leave on one side questions of date and other such problems.
It is, indeed, commonly admitted that this pearl of Greek romance
^ R. M. Rattenbury, Les Ethiopiques AHiliodore, i, p. xxi, also observes
that in the Jethiopka the religion seems less artificial than elsewhere.
Compare the preface by the translator, J. Maillon, p. Ixxxvi, who calls
attention to the same admiration for the gymnosophists and the same distinction
between magic and theurgy as in Philostratus. '
6i6 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
is one of the most attractive works that have come down from
antiquity. Translated by Amyot, admired by Goethe, and imi-
tated by Bernardin de S. Pierre, the author of Paul et Virginie,
this delightful source of inspiration may still be traced in our
own day. After ‘le petit berger avec sa flute et ses chhvres’ of a
great painter, Corot, it has found expression in ‘ la symphonie
chor%raphique ’ of an equally great musician. Ravel.
No summary need be given here of this story of the two young
figures, Daphnis and Chloe, deserted by their parents and driven
amid all kinds of abduction and romantic adventures to the
discovery of natural love. In this pastoral the ordinary motifs of
the genre make up only the frame of the plot, and the love of the
country which pervades it certainly goes back to the poets of the
Hellenistic age who first gave expression to the modern feeling for
nature: for the rocks, meadows, fountains, streams, wooded hills,
sea-shores, little chapels dedicated to Pan and the nymphs, which
decorate his tale, it may be said that Longus had before him the
Idylls of Theocritus, so strong is the bucolic tradition in his
scenery. Here again, therefore, we end by being faced with what
has been called by one scholar the ‘ Hellenistic sea,’ the common
source in whose vast waters were absorbed and mingled for a
time the most varied currents and elements of the literatures
of the world.
It has been already observed (vol. xi, p. 707) that ‘the only
literary form of the time which would show much power of
development was the romance, which appeals largely through its
opportunities of self-identification with hero or heroine.’ Our
picture would be seriously incomplete if we were to leave this
field of romantic literature without noticing its productions out-
side scholarly circles. Everywhere in this age, even among the
least educated sections of the population, tales were invented and
wonders sought out. Among the Christians, too, edification was
sought in the recital of adventures: travels of the Evangelists in
the remotest countries, acts of the apostles (Andrew, John or
Thomas) and even of the earliest evangelists, the life of Joseph the
carpenter, stories of the childhood of Jesus, or Conversions or
Confessions such as those of Cyprian of Antioch. The work of
which Rufinus has left us a Latin translation with the title S.
dementis Recognitiones is one of the best examples of this
type of composition. The title alone is almost enough to
show the affinity of this edifying narrative with the romantic
literature of the age.
In the third century delight in romantic fiction left its mark
XVIII, i] DJPHNIS JND CHLOE-. MYrcnODWS 617
even on works of the most profound theological speculation. Men
still continued to enjoy reading Plato, and this preserved a taste
for giving controversial writings the form of fictitious discussion.
Contemporary Christian apologetic especially may be said to have
caused a sort of revival of the philosophic dialogue. But there was
this difference, that fashionable adventure stories were introduced
into the setting. For instance, when METHODius,a cultured bishop
of Olympus in Lycia, wished to refute the very daring views of
Origen on the future life and the resurrection of the body (p.483),
and had the idea of borrowing from the the plan of a new
dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul, he did not stop at em-
bellishing his work with some touches from the Protagoras. He
also found room for some of the inventions which were then a
feature of adventure stories, and in this dialogue, entitled
Aglaofhon, he relates how a friend of his, Theophilus, was cast up
by a storm on the Lycian coast, and how, when he sought for
him, he found him in the house of a doctor — the character who
gives his name to the dialogue — engaged in a discussion with him
on the subject of the resurrection. Aglaophon acts as the mouth-
piece of Origen and accordingly maintains that, as the flesh is the
origin of evil, if the body is reborn, sin must necessarily at the
same time be reintroduced into the soul. A certain Memmian, in
the course of discussion, undertakes to refute this argument, and
the dialogue ends in the discomfiture of the rash doctor who had
claimed to eliminate from the future life the presence of the human
body, the most attractive of all forms, and to substitute for it, as
the support of the soul, the ethereal or astral vehicles of the
Platonists, with geometric shapes— sphere, polyhedron, cube
or pyramid — derived from the fancies of the Timaeus.
It was also in a dialogue that Methodius controverted the
doctrine of the eternity of the world — a doctrine assigned to a
fictitious follower of Origen of the name of Centaur — and in the
same form he discussed the problem of free-will. But he was
destined to go down to posterity more especially as the writer of
the long dialogue called the Symposium of the Ten Virgins. The pure
love-feasts of this Symposium are set in a delightful garden, a kind
of earthly paradise in the far East, which is poetically described by
the author with the aid of scraps from the Phaedrus^ the Theaetetus
and the Axiochus. There also occurs a reminiscence of the un-
touched solitude which Euripides, in one of his plays, had taken as
the symbol of Modesty: Agatha, one of the wise virgins, exclaims
‘there is the garland I offer to thee, woven with flowers picked
in the meadows of the Prophets, O Virtue, that I in my turn may
6i8 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
adorn thee^.’ Methodius knew that, if he substituted Chastity
for the Eros of the Symposium of Plato, the best analogue for the
purity of his heroines was the ideal of the Hippolytus of Euripides.
This type of romantic imagination, which is so noticeable a
feature of the work of the bishop of Olympus, shows that Christian
teaching, without losing too much of its seriousness, is already
beginning to put off the heavy armour of its early polemics and
is turning to seek the company of the Muses. It strikes out on
new paths leading to the rhetorical schools, and secures the
applause of the lecture-room. Somewhat in the manner of
Methodius, ApollinariusofLaodicea a little later cast into Socratic
dialogue the conversations of Jesus and the apostles. Subse-
quently the pagan emperor, Julian, vexed by the sight of Galileans
at lectures on Greek literature, determined to put a stop to their
coming and plundering the resources of the Greeks in order to
use them against the civilization from which they had sprung^.
Athens at this time was nothing more than a city of the past,
the resort of tourists, of art-lovers and literary critics, a quiet
town where men devoted themselves to disinterested study,
literary pursuits and the contemplation of history. But this was
not to endure. Soon the march of events tore Hellenism, in the
most sacred of its retreats, from the joys of contemplation and
swept it into the storms of political affairs, though, meanwhile,
the Athenian rhetorical schools had, in Longinus, their last
moment of splendour. A nephew through his mother of the sophist
Pronto — a citizen of Emesa, like more than one of the friends of
Julia Domna — Longinus, on coming into a legacy from his uncle,
used his wealth in furthering his education by extensive travel,
particularly to Alexandria, attended by Ammonius Saccas in a
society in which we shall see his name reappear. He then settled
at Athens, where he began by teaching rhetoric and philosophy.
He was nicknamed the ‘living library’ and the ‘walking museum,’
but he was not lacking in shrewdness and taste. He soon became
the leading figure in literary criticism. Some of his judgments are
known to us, and they seem to deserve the esteem which they
enjoyed. It was not long before pupils flocked to his school.
Among them he singled out a man of an inexhaustible love of
learning, one who, like himself, had come from Syria, the Tyrian
Malchus, ‘the king,’ whose name he changed to its Greek equi-
valent, Porphyrius.
^ Symposium, vit S, p. 70, 8 sq. Bonwetsch; cf. Euripides, Hipp. 73 sqq.
® Julian, Epht. 61 (ed. Bidez-Cuinont) and Bidez, La Fie de PEmpereur
yulien, pp. 263 sqq.
XVIII, II] LONGINUS 619
Longinus taught at the Academy, and, in loyalty to the tradi-
tions of the School, he piously observed the anniversary of its
founder Plato. We have some detailed knowledge of one of these
celebrations: at the commemorative symposium the conversation
turned on learned questions. The thesis was put forward that
Ephorus, Theopompus, Menander, Hellanicus, Herodotus and
Euripides were plagiarists, and even the originality of the hero of
the feast had to be defended. This scene is of a piece with what we
know of contemporary teaching and reveals the learning and
childishness of the talk of the scholars at Athens who were united
in the veneration of Plato. The occasion was before Porphyry left
for Rome about the year 262/3.
Five years later the Goths landed at the Piraeus. In Athens
itself they would have made a bonfire of the books of one of the
libraries, if one of their number, ‘looked up to by his fellows for
his wisdom,’ had not pointed out to the barbarians that it would be
better to leave the Greeks buried in the lumber room of old
books, which made them easy to conquer, than to cause them to arm
themselves with swords. About this time Zenobia, the queen of
Palmyra, had invited her countryman Longinus to her court, and
the master, hearkening to the voice of nature, decided it would
be far better to win a new empire for Hellenism than to
persist in the defence of the Acropolis. He therefore left Greece,
entrusting the latter task to the historian Dexippus, and at
Palmyra threw himself so whole-heartedly into his new work of
adviser to an ambitious princess that not long afterwards, when
Zenobia submitted to her conqueror Aurelian, he was con-
demned to death for high treason by the Roman emperor. After
the bravely faced execution of the ill-starred champion of a lost
cause, rhetoric at Athens was for a time brought to a standstill.
On the other hand, Dexippus learnt from the grim fortunes of
his times — like Cassius Dio, if not Herodian — the style and
manner of Thucydides, the weightiest and most profound of the
historical writers of antiquity.
II. ALEXANDRIA: PLOTINUS
After the assassination of Geta, and at the time of the massacres
carried out at Alexandria by the merciless fratricide Caracalla
(p. 49), the officials of the Museum at Alexandria were cruelly
deprived of their revenues and allowances and suffered great
hardship; those who were not natives of the country were even
expelled. After this first alarm the reading-rooms of the city
620 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
libraries recovered sufficient quiet for the Egyptian Athenaeus of
Naucratis to be able to devote his leisure to the scrutiny of more
than 1500 works and to draw from them the material for the
essays in his Deipmsofhistae in Mtcen books on drinking, eating,
seasoning, sauces, the delicacies of notable gourmets, the customs
at banquets, and even on love, besides the dance, singing and
games. These essays would have caused the guests at the banquet
to die of boredom if the banquet had really been served. We to-
day can find entertainment in the diverse episodes in the literary
life of the past of which Athenaeus’ compilation enables us to
form a picture.
Literary pastimes such as those of Athenaeus were possible at
Alexandria only for a short period. About the time when the
Goths pillaged Athens, the troops of Zenobia (269—270) came
and plundered the quarter of the public buildings and palaces
(Brucheion) which had been erected in the capital of the Ptolemies
near the tomb of Alexander. The Museum was not spared in the
general destruction, and henceforth this great home of Greek
culture, although it did not disappear completely, could hardly do
more than maintain a shadow of what it had been in the past. As
late as the time of Ammianus Marcellinus^,the scientific genius of
the old metropolis still pursued various branches of learning:
‘geometry continued to make useful discoveries, music had its
devotees, harmony its expounders, and, though astronomers were
rarer, the movements of the stars were still observed; a study
never ceased to be made of the science of numbers and especially
of the art of foretelling the future.’ There is no lack of names or
examples for a commentary on this piece of evidence from Am-
mianus Marcellinus. It will be enough here to recall what was
said in the last volume (p. 704) about the mathematician Dio-
phantus, with whom may be placed the commentator Pappus and
Theon his continuator. As for schools, Ammianus in speaking of
Alexandria mentions also those of medicine which remained so
celebrated that ‘it was enough for a doctor to say that he had
studied there, and no further recommendation was required of
him.’ But one thing Ammianus does not say, because he stood
too close to perceive it Even at Alexandria in the third century
the times were unfavourable for scientific observation and re-
search. The age of discovery had come to an end. One was
content with making encyclopaedic compilations in order to adapt
to the needs of the day what was essential in knowledge already
^ xxn, 16, 17; cf. Totim orbts descriptis in Muller, G.G.M. n, p. 519,
§ 34 etc.
XVIII, n] ATHENAEUS; ALEXANDRIA 621
acquired by science and technical achievement. Men no longer
dreamed of probing into the secrets of nature; nature was regarded
as the agent of wonders and to gain her service recourse was had
to miracle-workers who expounded in oracles what they called the
‘holy science’ or ‘the great art.’
Despite the establishment of official doctors, medicine itself so
far declined that instead of being able to point to exact obser-
vations of clinical workers one has to cite a magical pharmacopoeia
and the occultism of astrology, demonology and exorcism. In
anatomy Galen, to give a single example, was one of the last to
carry out dissection^. Moreover, with the growth of sick wards
attached to Christian benevolent institutions the art of healing
became in the end separated from university teaching. At the
time of the great plague in the third century the Christians
exhibited a devoted solicitude for the sick, while pagans were
content to cast victims of the scourge into the street.
But to help us to form an idea of the new attitude taken up by
those connected with the old-established Museum we have
something more valuable than a series of facts of this kind ; we can
come to know a personality which by itself is worth more than a
hundred others. His works will show us, among other things, that
the art of healing which men sought more than anything else
was a spiritual regime which would ensure the soul’s happiness,
not through the simple consciousness of belief (ttiVtis) and love,
nor by the mystical and sacramental effect produced by initiation
into the secrets of a ‘gnosis,’ but by the illumination of the intellect
(vovg) enraptured and transported, as the result of a new con-
ception of assimilation with God (ofioLoxrLs 6ea), to the sub-
limities of the supreme Intelligence.
Plotinus was born at Lycopolis in a.d. 204 and was already
twenty-eight when he came to Alexandria to learn philosophy.
He studied under the most famous teachers, but instead of
finding himself enlightened, he experienced a disillusion. In deep
depression he confessed his disappointment to a friend, who at
once introduced him to the very select circle of the mysterious
Alexandrine, Ammonius Saccas. Plotinus was accepted by
Ammonius, and soon realized from talking with him that he had
found exactly the sort of guide for whom he was looking.
It may be asked what precisely did Ammonius teach. As if it
^ Dissection, that is to say, of animals. A papyrus, recently published by
A. Wifstrand, ‘Anatomischer Katechismus,’ in Bull, de la Societi R. des
Letlres de Lund, 1934—5, pp. 64 ryj., supplies a typical example of con-
temporary dogmatic instruction without the slightest attempt at observation.
GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
were a mystery, all those who listened to him had to promise to
disclose nothing about it, and it is by the teaching of Plotinus
himself that we can best divine its nature. After eleven years
spent in philosophical discussion and meditation with this thinker,
Plotinus, when the Emperor Gordian opened the doors of the
temple of Janus at Rome to announce a great expedition against
the Sassanid kingdom, determined to make use of so fine an
opportunity to observe on the spot ‘the philosophy practised by
the Persians,’ as well as by the Indians, who likewise were at
that time exciting much interest (p. 614). He therefore joined the
army which was preparing to invade Mesopotamia. But some
months later Gordian was killed by riotous soldiers near Doura,
and Plotinus had to abandon his plan without having got even as
far as Ctesiphon. He returned to Antioch (February 244) after
having perhaps an opportunity at Apamea on the Orontes of
making himself familiar with the philosophy of Numenius (vol. xi,
p. 700), which had always filled his thoughts. Finally, from
Antioch he went to Rome, where he opened a school.
A visitor to it for the first time must have been deeply.impressed.
Still stunned by the bustle of the great city, and only a step from
the streets in which was displayed, in a brilliant setting of public
buildings, the splendour of a life of pleasure such as we can
hardly imagine, he came upon a quiet circle of ascetics who turned
their backs upon the world and meditated on books of philo-
sophy, practising a lofty disdain for external things. Leading
together a life of sanctity the initiates of this philosophic con-
venticle looked, first, for a moment of ecstasy on this earth and
ultimately for the deliverance of their soul through death and its
return to the bosom of the eternal Being. The existence in the
world-capital of this small cloistered brotherhood of ‘pale folk’
is nothing of a surprise. It is one of those violent contrasts which
occur in the intense and hectic life of such a centre as that of
Imperial Rome.
When Porphyry, no doubt bearing a letter of introduction from
Longinus, presented himself to Plotinus, the master’s teaching
had been fully thought out. His quiet and attractive manner,
his serious and simple nature, his distaste for fashionable rhetoric
and cheap success, the loftiness of his ideas and the strictness
with which he followed his philosophic principles, his know-
ledge of men and that intuitive understanding which sometimes
made him seem like a thought reader, the force and passion of his
words, his genuine enthusiasm and disinterestedness, won for
him an authority altogether different from that of the philosophers
XVIII, II] PLOTINUS 623
who lived like private chaplains in the large houses of Rome and
were good fellows with whom master and servant enjoyed making
merry. Plotinus had transformed and exalted the part of the
philosopher. He had cast a halo round him by earning for him-
self so high a prestige in the eyes of the Romans. He was one of
those strong-willed geniuses who exercise a strange kind of
fascination. He still fascinates to-day. It is impossible to come
into contact with him without being overpowered. ‘I have been
almost frightened,’ Novalis wrote to a friend, ‘ by his resemblance
to Fichte and Kant. ... In my heart I feel that he is worth more
than both of them.’
Plotinus’ mode of life was simple. He showed an entire dis-
regard for the care of the body and practised vegetarianism.
Sometimes he abstained even from bread. Although he was not
strong he disobeyed his doctors’ orders, and he carried his scorn
for worldly things so far as to neglect them in all their forms,
from the sonorous style with which rhetoricians pleased the ear,
to the details of his own writing, which was by no means correct
and hardly readable. On the other hand, he gave himself up to
meditation with an intense concentration of which Porphyry has
left us an impressive account. He was consumed by the fire of an
intellectual passion which transfigured him. Four times while
Porphyry was staying with him, the wise hierophant ‘went
beyond the choir of virtues as a man leaves behind him the statues
of the gods to enter the sanctuary’ and reached ecstasy, or com-
munion and identification with the Infinite.
One of the original features in the teaching of Plotinus is to be
seen in the part played by images and figurative expressions in the
exposition of his ideas. If it were not for the luminous and
brightly coloured touches which constantly help to make up for
the ineffectiveness of the reasoning, the Enneads, with their
laborious attempts to grasp the most elusive abstractions, would
not wholly succeed in conveying the writer’s doctrine. In this
respect Plotinus followed the example of the wise men of his
country, who, as he tells us^, instead of writing letters and words
on the walls of their temples, preferred to draw images and sym-
bols. It will not be surprising to hear that speculation so little in-
spired by the method or even the spirit of the sciences called exact
showed itself as far removed as possible from a purely mechanistic
conception of the universe.
Nature, for Plotinus^, knows not levers. That is why he
constantly emphasizes distant action; like an echo, which seems
1 Enmads, v, 8, 6. ® lb. iir, 8, 2 ad init.
624 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
to come from a wall of rock, whereas in fact it is caused by the
resonance of a far-off voice; like a softly spoken word which sets
going something at vast distances; like the heavenly choirs and
the harmony of the world whose agreement and rhythm are
maintained across the intervening space simply by the attention
of the executants^. Is it some material contact which causes a
flower or stone to vibrate in accord with the astral powers How
can we explain the power of God in every branch of nature and the
universal prayer which makes every being try to rise towards
Him?
The more improbable materialistic mechanism appeared to
Plotinus, the more universally he detected in the actions and
interactions of beings the effects of a kind of magic power and
recognized the reality of the universal sympathy made active in the
mystical religions of his day. But Plotinus is not content with the
principle of unity thus revealed in the interconnection of the
members of a living organism. He needs a higher unity, and,
drawing inspiration from the idealism of Plato, he finds it in the
intelligence. For him the bond of dependence among beings
becomes entirely intellectual. The intelligences are to the supreme
Intelligence and to one another as the theorems of a particular
science are to Science as a whole and to one another: each of them
potentially includes the others however different from them
it may be. Thus it is that one can contemplate in the unity of
a science its whole content. On the other hand beings have no
reality except in the Intelligence itself. They are neither before it,
nor after it; the Intelligence is, as it were, alike their first legislator
and their principle, or rather the very law of their being, and it is
true to say that existence and thought are the same thing.
By synthesizing the ‘rational-creative Logoi' of the Stoics with
the Platonic Idea, and introducing them to the intelligible world
whence these ‘‘Logoi' shape sensible beings and reflect themselves
in them, Plotinus reached his famous doctrine of the creative
activity of contemplation. It is by contemplating the one that
the soul gives unity — ^and therefore being — to each of its pro-
ductions^.
To say that the one is the principle of being is for him the
same as saying that the only true reality is contemplation. Not
only is intelligence contemplation of its object, but nature also is
contemplation, silent, unspeaking, unconscious contemplation of
the intelligible pattern which it strives to imitate; an animal, a
plant, any object has its form^ in the Aristotelian sense, only in so
1 Enneads, iv, 9, 3; yiadfin.^ etc. ® Ik m, 8, etc.
XVIII, Ii] PLOTINUS’ NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 625
far as it contemplates the ideal pattern which is reflected in it. To
maintain that contemplation is at the same time creation, is one of
the most violent paradoxes ever propounded by philosophy.
Plotinus develops it with a variety and abundance of arguments
and images which are at times dazzlingL
If anyone were to demand of Nature why it produces, it would answer, if
it were willing to listen and speak: ‘you should not ask questions, but like me
understand in silence: for I am a silent one, and to talk is not my custom.
What ought you to understand? This, that the created world is my silent
contemplation, a contemplation produced by my nature : for being born myself
of contemplation [the meditation of the Intellective Soul], I am naturally
contemplative and that which contemplates in me produces an object of
cantemphtion, as geometers describe figures while cmt emulating.' I, however,
do not describe figures; but while I contemplate, the outlines of bodies take
substance, as though they had fallen from my lap. I preserve the disposition
of my mother [the universal soul] and of those who engendered me [the
rational-creative Logoi^. They too were born of contemplation. So my birth
in turn came about by no action of theirs®; from the self-contemplation of
Principles that are greater than I, I was generated.
This passage contains a comparison which helps greatly to-
wards understanding the paradox of creative contemplation : ‘that
which contemplates in me produces an object of contemplation, as
geometers describe figures while contemplating.’ If one turns to
the Timaeus 53A-55C, it will be found there that, in the myth of
creation, the four elements are produced with simple geometrical
outlines, those of the four regular polyhedra — the cube in the case
of earth, the icosahedron in that of water, the octahedron in that
of air, the tetrahedron in that of fire; so, as with the geometer,
the soul of the world has but to consider the design, as it
were, of the constituent mathematical relations of the Intelligence,,
which is its model, and then, acted upon by Eros, the figures
which the soul contemplates and whose beauty it admires and
loves spontaneously project themselves into reality. This example
alone is enough to show how deeply imbued with the spirit of
Plato Plotinus was.
It will also have been noticed that the Mother of sensible
beings, or Nature (<I>ucrts)3 who speaks thus, is the daughter of
the universal soul (soul of theworldorprincipleof life), and this soul
^ Enneads, iii, 8, 4 jyy. ; E. Brehier, Histaire de la pMlosophie ancienne,
II, pp. 459 sqq., and Plotin, pp. $3 W-
® ^“Praxis", action, is contrasted with “Theoria”, m^itation, the other
great form of energy; ...according to Plotinus, Praxis is Theoria in a
weaker shape due to the intrusion of matter and therefore confined to the
sensible universe.’ E. R. Dodds, Select passages illustrating Neoplatonism,
:C.A.HiXII
6z6 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
is itself born of pure Intelligence, which is at once thought and
being — the subject and object of modern philosophers — above
which, to avoid plurality or, in other words, to escape from the in-
fluence of matter, one must go one step higher. Once arrived at
the top of the slope by which the ascent has been made through
the three chief stages — the famous system of ‘ the three hypostases’
(the trinity of the soul, the spirit (vows) and the One) — a specially
gifted man may experience, in a rapture, intuition of the Absolute.
This Absolute, the father of beings, inconceivable except as pure
goodness, cannot but bestow existence on all things, and while it
keeps itself intact, unchanging, and indivisible throughout its
constant production, on everything which emanates from it, it
leaves its mark with a more or less vague or conscious desire to
return to it. Here if a man wishes to understand he needs the help
of comparisons and parallels.
Conceive a spring having no alien source; giving itself to all rivers, yet not
exhausted therein, but itself abiding at rest; and the rivers that have gone out
from it journeying a while together in one flood before they run their
several courses, yet each as it were already conscious in what place its own
waters shall find issue. Or conceive the life of a great plant pervading every
part, whilst the source of that life itself endures undispersed, having its seat,
as it were, in the root^.
This, then, is the theme which this philosophy delights to
return to and develop with every kind of variation: there proceeds
from the Absolute in an unbroken continuity first the world of
thought, secondly that of the pure ideas contained in it, thirdly
that of souls and material bodies; then, under the impulse of
desire, everything which has been born strives to return to the
prime source of Being. The divine does not descend; however
remote it may be, man must climb to the height of divinity, if he
is to unite himself with the One above all multiplicity. The possi-
bility of this union lies in the activity of pure thought, and, far
beyond the human spirit, in the mysterious accord of the individual
with the first Being, an accord beyond all reason. Only an
imperfect idea of Plotinus can be gained without reading in their
context some of the flashes of his ‘quivering and vibrating’ style,
whereby is expressed the wealth of contradictory ideas and
difficulties which come before him as soon as he tries to speak of
this being in rapture with God in which consciousness of person-
ality fades away®.
^ Emeads, in, 8, lo, trans. Dodds, op. cit. p. 54.
® Here may be quoted only one example, ^osen because in it has been
happily noticed the presence of an admost romantic lyricism which is ordi-
XVIII, u] PLOTINUS’ CONTEMPLATION 627
The teaching and vocation of this philosophy were renunciation
of this world and detachment from all activity in it for the sake of
a better. At the same time, this renunciation of the world did not
at all imply condemnation of it, nor a horror or deep dislike or
denial. In the eyes of Plotinus the world is beautiful, as should be
the work and reflection of the divinity which is immanent in it.
A last ray of the Greek spirit in its decline thus shines where the
philosopher glorifies the splendour of the cosmos. On this theme
he sometimes raises his voice in a way that can be explained only
by the antipathy which his eyes observed in his own audience.
In Plotinus’ day ‘gnosis,’ a religious philosophy of Oriental
inspiration, was spreading everywhere in various forms (ch. xiii).
It condemned a world created by the spirit of evil and given up
to a cruel Destiny, and stressed the need of the worship of saving
gods who would intervene in person here on earth and distribute
their favours and mercy to gatherings of the faithful and elect.
Dwelling on apocalypses and revelations, they set against Platonic
cosmology, ruled by pure Intelligence, the dualism of the armies
of Good and Evil. Compared with the immense antiquity of the
traditions to which they appealed, whether they were Syrian,
Chaldaean or Iranian, the seven centuries of Greek thought
seemed nothing but the first phase of a philosophy still in its
infancy. These ‘gnostics’ appeared to have everything in their
favour. They went straight to men’s souls in all they said. They
set forth a fine display of theology and speculative fancies. They
claimed that Plato himself was a pupil of their ancient wisdom and
that Christ gave them the mystical benefit of his death and
redemption. They forced their way into Plotinus’ audiences and
argued against him. Their persuasive tones shook the faith of his
pupils, and Plotinus felt the need of breaking free from the hold
which threatened to fetter him. Plato’s position as the supreme
director of thought was seriously menaced, and the dogma of the
goodness of the world was openly flouted. Plotinus replied, and
an echo of his vehement refutations may be heard in the Enneads^.
Plotinus, in fact, refused to look upon the soul as a prisoner in a
narily alien to Plotinus’ intellectualism (cf. G. Misch,G«rA. derJutohiographie,
I, pp. 377 r??.) : ‘ Many timesithas happened lifted out of the bodyinto myself;
becoming external to all other thin^ and self-encentered; beholding a
marvellous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the
loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine;
stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever
within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme,’ Enneads, iv, 8, i, transl. by
Mackenna. ^ n, 9, 5 -f??-
628 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
Satanic gaol with no hope of salvation except by the supernatural
intervention of a redeemer ; for him, on the contrary, the soul, by
itself and its own unaided powers, could free itself from the body,
cleave to the pure Intelligence, regain its first dignity, and, at the
end of its liberation, rise to God — ^not, of course, to the personal
God of the gnostics, but to that state of ecstatic union with the One
which it is the aim of philosophy to achieve. To find God Plotinus
has no need to enter a temple or bow down before an image. His
prayer is not a cry of despair, nor an avowal of repentance, nor an
entreaty designed to move to pity a being who can help if he will.
‘ The gift of the intellect is not like a present which can be taken
away. ’ After a divorce from unity the soul has only to turn again
towards the lost communion and our fulness is re-established to-
gether with the desired equilibrium. Our destiny is entirely in the
life within us; it depends on that, and on nothing else.
At Medinet Madi in the Fayum a library has lately been
discovered which proves that Manichaean writings could be read
in Egypt in the time of Ammonius Saccas, and in order to explain
the vigour of Plotinus’ resistance to the invasion of gnosticism
from the Near East his attempt to go and observe the philosophy
of India on the spot has been called in evidence; writers have even
tried to credit him with some of the understanding of Hindu
asceticism which Man! had won in the course of his travels a
century before and of which he took account in founding his
cosmopolitan religioiA. It is undeniable that there was some kind
of contact between Plotinus and Indian thought. But it is another
matter to say that without this contact Plotinus could not have
conceived a type of idealism to which many independent thinkers
since his time have approached. Rather may it be said that
Plotinus’ fundamental achievement was to bring to life in the
heart of Platonism the activity of certain affinities with Asia as
old as the first philosophic conversations in the gardens of the
Academy. As far back as the time of Eudoxus of Cnidus Plato
was sufficiently open-minded not to refuse to consider the ideas of
the East^. Plotinus brought to his work as a Greek thinker the
same readiness to learn.
J. Przyluski, ‘Mani et Riotin’, Buii, jicad. Belg., Classe des Lettres,
^933> PP- 322 and ‘Les trois hypostases’ etc., m Milanges Cummt,
pp. 926 jys.
® J. Bwez, ‘Platon, Eudoxe de Cnide et I’Orient,’ Bull. Acad. Belg.,
Classe des Lettres, 1933, pp. I94 sqq.
XVIII, m] THE GNOSTICS: PORPHYRY 629
III. PORPHYRY
In order to eharacterize the work of his pupil Porphyry it must
be emphasized that Plotinus stands at the beginning of a new era.
Men were ceasing to observe the external world and to try to
understand it, utilize it or improve it. They were turning away
from nature because they could no longer see in it anything but
change, deterioration, corruption, materiality, coarseness and
meanness. They were driven in upon themselves. In the inmost
consciousness of life and the being of the soul they believed they
were in touch with the eternal, the unchanging and the divine.
Instead of deifying the world and uniting themselves with God by the
heightening of the senses or by the contemplation of the stars, they
began to draw fancies from their inner impulses or sought benefit
in meditation. The idea of the beauty of the heavens and of the
world went out of fashion and was replaced by that of the Infinite.
Plotinus was one of the chief authors of this revolution. He
gave it theoretical justification. He clad the ascetic in the cloak of
Platonic philosophy. He expressed the new teaching of the value
of things by means of some of the most striking images which
could appeal to men’s minds. But there was nothing of the
popularizer in the head of the Neoplatonic school, and a long
initiation was necessary in order to penetrate his thought. He
needed . assistants capable of giving a kind of ijreliminary in-
struction. In this work Porphyry excelled. He trained the minds
of his students in the Organonoi Aristotle and in thestudyof formal
logic. In time, by musing on the great principles of asceticism, he
made himself the moralist of the teaching of which Plotinus was
the metaphysician. In commenting on selected works of Aristotle
and Plato on many points he developed, justified and clarified the
ideas of his master and even found new applications of them. His
untiring industry, his controversial ardour, and enthusiastic
propaganda contributed greatly to the good management and
early success of the school. It has been said that he became, as it
were, the very soul of Hellenism and the protagonist of his party.
The most striking conversions to the ideas of Plotinus were
due to him; it was he who established the contact between
Platonism and St Augustine, the builder of a new City of God.
Plotinus was an admirable improviser, but no composer on
paper. He always disdained not only rhetorical artifice but also
the trouble needed to secure a well-turned and exact phrase. He
did not even re-read what he wrote. But he realized the value of a
revision of his writings by a skilled hand, and entrusted the task
630 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
of publishing them to Porphyry. His pupil accepted it, but did not
carry it out at once. For a long time after the death of Plotinus
he was content to expound his master’s teachings orally. To those
who like Longinus asked for the written word he sent indifferent
copies. But he was urged ever more strongly to produce an
accurate definitive text. There was inevitably a loud demand
for such a publication on the part of the growing number of the
admirers of Plotinus. Furthermore, in issuing the works of the
last great pagan thinker, Porphyry was taking thought not only of
the needs of the Platonic school but also for the Hellenism to which
he was devoted. Plotinus was the true interpreter of Plato. His
works supplemented those of the master of masters and were to
supply men who were specially gifted and eager to learn with a
selection of pious meditations which they needed. When Por-
phyry published his collection of Plotinus’ lectures in six Enneads
or divisions, each consisting of nine chapters, he added notes at the
request of some friends who desired explanations. If to-day we
may hope to restore to life the oral teaching of Plotinus, it is
mainly due to the explanations that have by chance been handed
down to us by the most understanding and attentive of his
auditors^. Porphyry also provided his edition with summaries and
arguments, and at the beginning of the work gave an account of
the philosopher’s life.
In the short work thus devoted to the biography of his master.
Porphyry does not always speak in the tone or spirit that might
be desired. In more than one place the philosopher is looked at
through the idle fancies and hallucinations of silly imaginations
obsessed by the marvellous, and many a story casts a halo round
his head which he himself would not have permitted. But on the
whole Porphyry succeeds in bringing his hero to life before us, in
body and in soul. In his Life of Plotinus he is still practising the
art of the older biographers, and there is a contrast between his
way of showing forth the merits of an ascetic and the manner
which is soon to distinguish the first products of Christian
hagiography — for example the life of Antony the Hermit by
Athanasius. The souls which Porphyry sets himself to win for his
faith are not the simple souls of ‘the poor in spirit.’
The fame of Porphyry is very largely due to his great work
Against the Christians. During the reign of Severus Alexander and
Gallienus the new religion had enjoyed toleration. After all,
neither the observances of the believers nor their faith nor their
^ P. Henry, ‘Vers la reconstitution de I’enseignement oral de Plotin.’
Bull. Acad. Belg., Classe des Leitres, 1937, pp. ^lOsqq.
XVIII, III] PORPHYRY AS INTERPRETER 631
attitude to society were any longer a cause of trouble. . Set beside
the mystic frenzy of a strongly orientalized paganism, the Lord’s
Supper celebrated as a sacrifice, the water poured at baptism as in
a rite of initiation, must have had the effect of attractive and
easily understood symbols, and even the piety by which Christians
were guided in invoking their Saviour God and asking salvation of
him was still shared by many souls. In widely different circles
the Gospel made steady progress. At Rome the number of those
sealed of the faith was increasing rapidly, and during this period
a strong and influential episcopacy was being organized in the
principal churches. More and more, enlightened pagans had to
take account of the seriousness of the situation. The time was
coming when a systematic persecution was to be set on foot.
It was these calamitous and troubled days that evoked the com-
position of Porphyry’s treatise against the Christians.
There are in the Enneads moving hymns to the creative Soul,
‘our beneficent sister who has the power to accomplish so much
without effort.’ As has been seen, she is the cause of the sym-
pathy in all the parts of the universe, mankind and the stars, the
sea, animals and plants. She gives nature its impressive beauty
and its poignant sadness. Cybele drank the water of Lethe, but in
her dreams, which follow one another like clouds racing across the
sky, she seeks to recall God. She would not succeed in raising her
eyes or in uttering the saving words if the human soul did not
find them for her. For we are— as may be said, according to
Plotinus — nature after its awakening, already speaking to God
and ready to see Him face to face. How inexhaustible are such
founts of a mysticism to which our poets will still so often go to
seek ecstatic visions ! How limitless the fruitfulness of a religion
which could seem in fact dead, but which, even during its old age,
still had so brilliant a hierophant! The Neoplatonist depicted it in
such wonderful forms that the Christians felt compelled to avoid
them. To avert the effect of its charms, they had to pronounce
anathema upon it.
Among the more enlightened spirits the conflict was felt less
keenly. With Plotinus certainly controversy never assumed an
unduly personal colour, and it left unimpaired the dream of a
common ideal and even of some measure of understanding. But
the more men turned to the public at large, the greater the wish to
extend the field of propaganda — the activity to which Porphyry
devoted himself — and the more keenly felt and inevitable became
the clashes. Faced by the common herd, men were soon drawn into
a fighting attitude, and thus the Platonists undertook the justifica-
632 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
tion of all the observances of the established cults, while the
Christians thundered against the wickednesses of idolatry. There
is, then, nothing surprising in the sight of a Porphyry who thus
became at the same time popularizer of the teaching of Plotinus
and adversary of the Church.
Nevertheless, the hostility of Porphyry is not to be explained
entirely by the development of philosophy. Amelius, his fellow-
student and collaborator, still invokes the testimony of the begin-
ning of the gospel according to St John, and although, following
thefashionof the school, he calls the disciple of Christa ‘barbarian,’
there is nothing to show that he was hostile to the Church. Neo-
platonism and Christianity were doubtless rivals destined sooner
or later to meet in conflict, but, if we wish to explain the declara-
tion of war, we must certainly take into account the personality of
Porphyry himself. No Neoplatonist was more likely than he was
to engage in hostilities. He had always concerned himself with
Christian teaching and observances and with the error which they
seemed to contain. In his earliest works, in his Philosophy of the
Oracles, if he appears to bow before the sanctity of Christ, he looks
upon the reverence shown to him as excessive. A little later, when
he published his treatise On the images of the gods, he writes for
the select, from whom the Christians are excluded, and it is the
Christians whom he takes to task. It is clear that at every period
of his literary activity and before he could have dreamed of putting
his gifts at the service of the ideas of Plotinus, he looked on the
new religion as a hostile force.
Porphyry’s treatise against the Christians was a considerable
work. It ran to fifteen books, wherein Porphyry made full use of
his learning and intellectual skill. Trained, as he had been, by
Longinus in critical scholarship, he soon saw how to set about
revealing inventions, improbabilities and contradictions in the
narratives of the Evangelists and other canonical books, and he
laboured to shatter the authority of the evidence appealed to by
true believers in support of their faith. Origen’s allegorical
interpretation, ‘ which cleverly read into the falsehoods of foreigners
the beliefs of the Greeks,’ did not find favour in his eyes.
Porphyry repeats, follows up and enlarges all that the ingenuity
of Celsus had discovered by way of argument. He brings against
the books of Daniel a proof of spuriousness that many modern
scholars consider conclusive. He attacks the genealogy of Jesus.
He claims to show by the contradictions of the synoptists that
their narratives cannot claim to be believed. He criticizes many
passages in the Acts of the Apostles. He finds that Peter is
XVIII, m] PORPHYRY’S POLEMIC 633
contradicted by Paul. Paul he attacks with special fury. The
philhellene sees in him nothing but coarse rhetoric and intolerable
incoherence. Porphyry’s whole polemic is elaborated with an
abundance of arguments in which contemporary controversialists
might find many of their favourite themes. Whenever rationalism
came into conflict with Christian revelation, it was enough to
repeat what had been said by Porphyry.
Porphyry, like his predecessor Celsus, was particularly shocked
to see among the Christians revolutionaries breaking with all their
ancestral inheritance, even with the ordinances of the Old Testa-
ment, and threatening the established order of things. He puts
them down as ‘barbarians.’ But, in spite of this, he seems less
concerned than Celsus to defend the Roman State. His special
originality comes out in the breadth of view with which he now
and then comprehends the struggle. Since Celsus the horizon
of Platonism had been widely extended. Porphyry has not the
same contempt as Celsus either for the Jews or for Orientals. His
humanity is such that he feels a measure of sympathy even with
the person of Christ and some parts of his teaching. He keeps his
wrath for the disciples of Jesus, for the distortions of which they
were the originators and for the ‘myths’ of the Evangelists. As
early as his day the canon of the writings of the New Testament
had been determined. He knows it and directs his attacks at it,
and it is this which gives his criticism a forcefulness and thrust
which places it far above that of his predecessors. In him are
found hardly any of the crude aspersions to which pagan polemic
of the first centuries had recourse. Nor is he malevolent in tone
like Julian. His controversy rarely sinks to the futile. He makes a
careful study of the points at issue and tries to foresee objections.
In the main he seems much less concerned with the effect he will
have on the public than with the particular error which he is
seeking to demonstrate.
Porphyry certainly endeavours to expose what he holds to be
weaknesses in the arguments used to prove the divine origin of
Christianity; but apart from this the work which he conceived is
one of deep philosophy and not mere polemic. He speaks as a
profoundly religious man. The need of revelation, redemption,
asceticism and immortality inspires him with a faith like that of
his opponents. In his desire to convince and to find what he calls
auniversal(‘ catholic’) way of salvation^, he goes so far as tojettison
the theurgy and observances of pagan worship. He shows him-
self still filled with the lofty and conciliatory thought of Plotinus.
^ See de Regressu, frag. 12 (Bidez, Fie de Porphyrey App. ii, p. 42*ry .).
634 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
In this respect, as in all others, he marks the transition between
early Neoplatonism and that of the time of lamblichus and Julian.
Philosophy is already at war with Christianity; but, in spite of the
outbreak of hostilities, there can always be suspected in him a
hope of agreement.
This hope proved illusory. No settlement was possible. In the
treatise which Porphyry wrote against them the Christians saw
nothing but hostility, and they had good reason for feeling anxious
about it. The sum-total of testimonies and doctrines on which
the Church based its teaching had to meet the most formidable
indictment which has ever been drawn up by Hellenism. Re-
joinders succeeded one another. Methodius, Eusebius of Caesarea,
Apollinarius of Laodicea and Philostorgius attempted refutations.
But these refutations were not thought sufficient. As late as 448,
by the orders of the Emperors Valentinian III and Theodosius II,
the work was consigned to the flames, and the edict which
prescribed this auto-da-fe mentions Porphyry alone, saying nothing
of Celsus or of Hierocles or of Julian, as if of all the defences
of paganism only his need cause disquiet. Jerome, for example,
pours out on Porphyry all the abuse of which his nature was
capable, and that is saying a good deal. He calls him a scoundrel,
an impudent fellow, a vilifier, a sycophant, a lunatic and a mad dog.
It is as the collaborator of Plotinus that Porphyry has his chief
claim to our gratitude; but, at the same time, he has rendered us
services of a different kind. He was the author of a considerable
number of commentaries and miscellaneous works of learning^,
and he is one of the chief scholars to whom we owe our knowledge
of a host of writers of antiquity. A large part of the information to
be found in the Homeric scholia, in the series of Neoplatonic
commentaries and in many a Byzantine writer has come down to
us through him. For example, in modern collections of the frag-
ments of the pre-Socratics and Stoics, of the Orphic poems and
many other works, it would be enough to put Porphyry’s name at
the head of the extracts which we really owe to him, to show that
his contribution is one of the largest. In this respect he deserves a
place beside Pliny, Galen, Ptolemy and the other men of letters of
the Imperial age whose learned works enable us in some measure
to make up for the loss of so many precious documents.
If Porphyry could return to the world of men, he would un-
doubtedly be not a little surprised at the fate which has befallen
his work. Certainly the idea of the supreme importance of the
spiritual life and the search for individual salvation to which he
^ Bidez, op. cit, pp. 65* sqq.
XVIII, IV] PORPHYRY AS SAVANT 635
gave a great part of his efforts, have worked wonders on this earth.
For many centuries a large dlite of mankind has withdrawn from
the world and sought in the silence of the cloister forgetfulness
of bondage to the flesh. But the triumph of idealism and mysti-
cism has not fallen to the standards and to the leaders under whom
the publisher of the Enneads took his place. The doctrines of the
Neoplatonists have influenced men’s minds in a Christian form.
In the visions of Dante and in the outpourings of medieval piety
Plotinus is forgotten, and in our own day also there are few
indeed who have even a slight knowledge of the debt due to him.
IV. lAMBLICHUS
All that is known of the early education of the philosopher
Iamblighus can soon be told. Born about 250 at Chalcis in Coele-
Syria, this Semite was at first, doubtless at Rome, the pupil of
Porphyry and of the mathematician Anatolius; he then returned
to Asia, and it is now known that, following the example of the
Neoplatonist Amelius, he went to teach at Apamea^. Details con-
cerning the life of lamblichus are scanty, but of his works, which
consisted of ponderous commentaries on Aristotle and Plato, a
life of Alypius, an essay on the gods, and other writings, there
remain considerable specimens and in particular long fragments
from a collection of treatises dealing with the philosophy of
Pythagoras: a Life of the master, an Exhortation to Philosophy, a
treatise On the science of mathematics. All these make up a tedious
collection, full of mystical remarks concerning the science of
numbers and a mass of quotations drawn from every kind of writer
and paraphrased from a moralistic standpoint, without any show of
literary merit, but commonplace in form and diffuse in style, a
nerveless and wearisome composition. "Whoever has tried to read
this writer, who far from having ‘sacrificed to the graces of
Hermes’ seems to wish ‘to repel with a phrase which grates
upon the ears%’ will ask himself how such a nincompoop could
have been regarded by the most distinguished men of his time as
a divine master and how he managed to arouse in them so
passionate an enthusiasm.
For Plotinus, as has been seen, religion was a matter entirely
for the inward man, and the means by which an attempt is made
to impress the imagination in public worship were unworthy of a
philosopher who wished to preserve his soul from all contact with
1 Bidez, ‘Le philosophe Jamblique et son ecole,’ R.ev. des Etudes grecques
xxxn, 1919, p. 31 sq. ^ Eunapius, Fit. Soph. p. 458, 9 sq. (Didot).
636 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
the external world. The master took little thought for the general
public. It was enough for him if his mysticism was available to a
chosen few. But as soon as lamblichus took over the management
of the school, at a time when paganism in its hour of danger was
calling more and more urgently for all the forces of Hellenism to
come to its help, the Neoplatonists threw themselves into the
struggle and they soon found that Porphyry had been too
yielding. In their desire to take more account of the needs
of their time they ceased to concern themselves only with an
elite and set to work to extend their field of propaganda. The
system of Plotinus was too remote for many minds ; hence, in order
to give a less abstruse form to the speculations of his philosophy,
lamblichus and his successors thought it well to enable men to
contemplate them through the showy and misty images of the
mystery religions^. Sarapis, Isis, Hecate, Deraeter, Dionysus and
Cybele supplied them with a whole host of emblems which they
put to ingenious use, and in future it was by symbolic visions that
they claimed to prepare the return of the soul to God. The
Neoplatonists thus turned themselves into ‘hierophants’ and
initiated their pupils into the secret cults of their time. Multi-
plying the triads and hebdomads according to the needs of the
cause, lamblichus set the example by admitting as many as 360
divine entities with 21 lords of the world and 42 gods of nature.
In this kind of barracks open for a general mobilization of poly-
theism, the mystic priest could find a place for anything which the
established cults olfered him, giving the place of honour naturally
to the leader of the gods set in charge of Plotinus’ intelligible
world, the great king Helios, with his image the visible Sun, his
doubles Zeus and Sarapis, his representatives Dionysus and
Asclepius, his emanations Apollo and Athena (Providence and
soul of the world), and lastly his companion Aphrodite.
To this Neoplatonist the real aim was to set up the great
confraternity of all the doctrines and religious practices of
Hellenism, a Hellenism which from now onwards let its flag fly
over all the traditional beliefs of Greece and the Near East.
The gods of every people’’are henceforth joined to form a pantheon
which puts its sanctuaries and priesthoods at the disposal of all
the devout, their religious blessings being, as it were, pooled. All
diflEerence of opinion must in future be abolished. Not only Plato,
Aristotle and Pythagoras, but also Heraclitus, Democritus and
^ This is already shown hy lamblichus’ answer to the Letter of Porphyrins
to AnehOi the de mysteriis that he published under the name of the Egyptian
prophet, Abammon. See Bidez in Milanges Desrousseaux, p. 1 2 jy.
XVIII, IV] lAMBLICHUS 637
the other philosophers — Epicurus and the Cynics alone being
excepted — -as well as the Orphics and the followers of Hermes
Trismegistus and with them the Jews, gnostics and Chaldaeans,
have all to be made to agree, and woe betide anyone who disturbs
this united front! The ‘queries’ that Porphyry had submitted to
the Egyptian priest Anebo will be regarded as blasphemous;
lamblichus will dispose of them and condemn them with equal
severity and unction. The enlightened intellectualism of a
Plotinus and a Porphyry drew its power and insight from the free
effort of individual thought. lamblichus is inspired by a mob
fanaticism. Plotinus and Porphyry had rejected the help of
saving gods: lamblichus appeals to every form of redemption and
revelation borne witness to by ancient tradition. Plotinus and
Porphyry had laid great stress on silent prayer and banished living
sacrifice from the worship of the gods. In his desire to found a
pagan Catholic church lamblichus is sensitive to the danger to
which his plan would be exposed by the smallest concession to the
revolutionary Evangelists: just as he pours scorn on the monks, so
he persists in the search for clever sophistries to show that,
religion being made for the people and the people having need of
visible divinities to worship, like those which can be seen in the
sky, the fire and smoke of sacrifice are symbols bearing, by their
very antiquity, incomparable power to strengthen the prayers and
raise towards the gods of the world the souls of the faithful
gathered in the temples.
Egypt had long been for Greek religious feeling the Holy Land.
But at the time when the Sassanids were making the voice of
Zoroaster speak with a fresh accent, when the sacred books of the
Hebrews, thanks to their hellenizing interpreters, were universally
reverenced, when the prophet Mani claimed to renew the ancient
predications of Buddha, Jesus and Zoroaster, it was impossible
to put a comprehensive religious syncretism under the exclusive
patronage of the old priesthoods of the country of the Pharaohs.
In the Second Century two holy men called Julian, who styled
themselves Chaldaeans, drew up the extraordinaiy series of oracles
known as ‘ logia Chaldaica ’ in which re-appeared, with the very spirit
of the Timaeus of Plato, the principles of the old Orphic-Pythagorean
mysticism from which Plato himself had borrowed so much.
To show the ‘symphony’ of the wise men of ancient Greece with
the doctrines revealed to priesthoods many thousands of years
old this doctrine of Oriental colour seemed like a godsend. lam-
blichus at once said farewell to dialectic and the unsuccessful
efforts of a rationality that had only shown into what fog and
638 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
wild vagaries reason, suspended between myriads of errors, ends
by sinking, and with all sail set sought shelter in the harbour
of superhuman revelation^. Thus it is lamblichus who was
responsible for an alliance which was to make his successor,
Proclus, observe that, if it were for him to decide, he would
destroy all books, with two exceptions, the Timaeus and the Logia^.
If any originality is to be attributed to lamblichus, it would have
to be found in his idea of combining so strangely the spirit
of Plato with the most fanatical aberrations; the conjunction
was certainly monstrous, but the influence which it produced
spread rapidly, at all events in the East. In the crypt at Ephesus
in which the Neoplatonist Maximus initiated the future Emperor
Julian into the mysteries of paganism, the spells used by the
wonder-worker were those which lamblichus had borrowed from
the theurgy of the oracles called Chaldaean. Writing from Gaul
to the philosopher Priscus, one of his companions in Platonic
mysticism, Julian asked him for a copy of ‘everything that
lamblichus wrote on his namesake’ (the theurge Julian). When
he set down these words, Julian believed he was undergoing a
supernatural experience and he apologizes for speaking with the
rapture of an enthusiast and adds, ‘ for my part I idolize lamblichus
in philosophy and my namesake, the theurge] in theosophy, and,
to speak in the manner of Apollodorus®, compared with them in
my eyes the others^ do not count.’ After this piece of evidence
there is no reason for surprise at reading in Eunapius that pupils
hurried in crowds all along the roads of Asia to the town of
Apamea where lamblichus taught and where his conversation —
not the reading of his writings — charmed those present at his
dinner parties so much that he seemed to fill them with nectar.
Like one inspired, living in communion with the gods, when he
made solemn sacrifice on the appointed dates, he caused spirits to
appear on the waters of fountains, and, as he prayed, his garments
changed to a beautiful golden hue, and, by a phenomenon like the
levitation of spirits in modern times, his body soared aloft ten
cubits from the ground®.
* lamblichus quoted in Catalogue des mss. alchimiques, vi, 163, 25 and
85 s<iq., and in Melanges Cumont,p. 93, (Proclus) frag. ii.
* Marinus, Life of Proclus, 38 ad fin., and J. Bidez, Revue beige de
PUlologie, VII, 1928, p. 147 sq., and above, vol. xi, p. 642^7.
^ The enthusiastic follower of Socrates; see Plato, Symposium, 173 » and
Julian, Ep. 17 ., trans. Bidez, p. 19. * Including even Plato!
® Eunapius, Fit. Soph. p. 458, 13^?.; cf. similar stories by E, R. Dodds
in Greek Poetry and Life: Essays presented to Gilbert Murray, p. 383.
XVIII, V]
lAMBLICHUS THEURGE
639
V. CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS: EUSEBIUS
The Phoenician Pamphilus was trained in the catechetical
school of Alexandria under the direction of Pierius, the successor
of Origen. On returning to his own country he settled at Gaesarea
in Palestine, the city already well-known through the Acts of the
Apostles, where Origen had taught latterly and had left his books.
To carry on the work of his master, Pamphilus founded a biblical
school at Caesarea and as a second ‘Demetrius of Phalerum ’ not
only spent money freely on collecting the scattered remains of
Qrigen’s library, but also began to copy with his own hand the
precious works which he was unable to acquire. Subsequently he
had a whole staff of scribes, which was soon joined by Eusebius,
working for him and with him so eagerlyand efficiently that before
long the school possessed a collection of books unrivalled in
Christian circles. In friendly collaboration with Pamphilus, to
whom he was so attached that he used his name like that of an
adoptive father (6 Ila/ac^iXou), Eusebius then occupied himself
under his direction in transcribing, cataloguing and editing texts,
in considering questions of authenticity, in drawing up chrono-
logical lists of writers and in collecting about them all kinds of
information (IcrTopCat) of literary history. With a mind and
training less philosophic than Origen and a learning less profound
than Porphyry he set himself, like them, to emulate the great
librarians who had in an earlier day inaugurated the methods of
historical and philological criticism in the Museum at Alexandria.
In 307 the persecution let loose by Galerius attacked the
school at Caesarea, and Pamphilus was cast into prison. Eusebius
relates the scenes of horror which he witnessed at that time. But
none the less for two years — we do not know how — he managed
to continue to work with his imprisoned master and together they
wrote an elaborate Apology for Origen. Pamphilus was executed in
310, and his disciple took it on himself to complete their common
;WorkL
Eusebius was an indefatigable worker and continued writing
until a very advanced age. As has been said by the author of one
of the best histories of the early Church, ‘he knew everything,
biblical history, pagan history, ancient literature, philosophy,
geography, computation, exegesis. He commented on Isaiah,
and the Psalms and on other books. He could explain the
difficult question of the Passover which depended on exegesis,
ritual and astronomy. Towards the end of his life men began to be
640 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
interested in the Holy Places, and Eusebius, who had a thorough
knowledge of Palestine and the Bible, explained the names of
peoples and places mentioned in Scripture, described Judaea and
reconstructed the ancient topography of the holy city. He ex-
celled in formal orations; in particular he delivered the one which
opened the discussions of the Council of Nicaea (3 25). It was to
him that the Emperor Constantine turned when he needed well-
written and accurate copies of the Bible; he once asked him for
fifty all at once, for the churches of Constantinople^. ’
The vast activity of Eusebius reveals an impressive unity of
inspiration. From start to finish of his literary career, the man
who may be thought of as the first archivist historiographer of the
Church set himself to rehabilitate the new religion in the eyes of
educated men by securing for it a title to nobility of which the
unbeliever Porphyry was ignorant. In the thought of this learned
reviver of apologetic who gives a richness and entirely new
splendour to the ideas of his predecessors, it is no longer a
question of winning an indulgent toleration for an obscure and
latter-day sect. Eusebius has the skill to draw from history a
striking proof of Christianity, designed by God to enter upon the
heritage of ancient civilizations. Taking up Origen’s idea that
with the accession of Augustus the reign of the pax Romana had
smoothed the way for the mission of the Apostles and the preach-
ing of the Gospel, he finds in it an argument to prove that the
destiny of the Roman Empire was providentially bound up with
that of Christianity^, and in this way the historia philologos and
philosophos of a Porphyry was, in the thought of his rival Eusebius,
to serve as a preparation for what he calls ‘ecclesiastical history.’
In the cause of Hellenism, or, as he put it, of ‘philosophy,’ in
order to strengthen the consciousness that Greece ought to have
of so many inherited virtues and benefits tomankind, Porphyry had
composed a chronograph)?®; Eusebius followed his example by be-
ginning his work with the drawing up of a chronicle in the same
way. But his subject led him to conceive of horizons differently
set from those of his predecessor. To recall the origins of Greek
thoughtit was naturally unnecessary to go farther back than Homer
and the fall of Troy; but it was necessary to go very much farther
back if one wished, as Eusebius did, to contrast with the traditions
of the Greeks those of foreign nations. At the same time Eusebius
does not lose himself in the obscurities of a past altogether
^ Eusebius, Fit. Const, iv, 36; Duchesne, Hist, de I’Rgiise, ii, 159 sq.
^ C£ E. Peterajn, Der Mmotheismus als politisches Problem, p. 75 J?-
® AH.G.nijp.hSgjy., known bythe borrowings made from it by Eusebius.
XVIII, V] EUSEBIUS AS HISTORIAN 641
fabulous. Dismissing the apocalyptic fancies of his predecessor
Julius Africanus who, in order to establish his messianic chiliasm,
claimed to know how many years ago the world had been created,
Eusebius had not to go beyond the time of the patriarch Abraham
to prove his case. Even in its starting-point his chronology is the
work of a careful and exact mind. In the first part (chronography)
the author tried to fix the chronological order of the important
events of his history, using for each people a.d. 325 as a terminal
date; in the second (table of concordant dates) he abstracted from
these different series of events a collection of synchronisms of which
the most characteristic in his eyes was the simultaneousness of the
birth of Jesus and the census of Quirinius. This work is the most
considerable of its kind in antiquity, and one of the foundations on
which still rests our knowledge of the dates in a large part of
Greek and Roman history. It must be confessed that Eusebius
does not display the complete independence of mind or the
forceful originality of an Eratosthenes or Apollodorus, the creators
of his type of research, but the Christian chronographer knew
how to work according to their methods, and it may be allowed
that, considering the evidence at his disposal, he was perfectly
honest in thinking that he had established the priority of Moses to
Homer and the primacy of the revelations of the Bible.
Christians were reproached by pagans with their novelty, and the
criticism was damaging, for the word ‘innovation’ (vecoT€picrfi6<s)
still bore the bad sense which the word ‘revolutionary’ has with
us. But Eusebius held that the accusation was unjust, as he sets
out to prove in his Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evangelica,
starting invariably from the ideas of Origen. If the Christians
gave up the beliefs of their ancestors (ra irdrpta) and went over
to Judaism, that was because paganism with its obscene and
shocking myths, with its idolatry and the bad customs which it
fostered, was an indefensible aberration which had all too long
perverted mankind. For centuries divine wisdom had vouch-
safed a glimpse of the truth to the best of the Greek thinkers ; in
the teaching of a Plato Christians recognized opinions which were
‘relations and friends’ of their own. Having thus in the Prae-
paratio refuted pagan polytheism and shown the superiority of
Hebraic monotheism, Eusebius in the which formed
the sequel, turned to the Jews to rebut their criticism that
the Christians accepted Judaism only to alter it. He main-
tained that the legislation of Moses was only a temporary dis-
pensation, intended to serve as a transition between the age of
the patriarchs and the coming of Christ. Christianity with its
642 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
doctrine of the Trinity — the Father, the Son {Logos or fV ord) and
Holy Ghost — and of the salvation secured for men by free sub-
mission (or assimilation, 6|xoio>cris) to the divine will, was to him
the natural development of Judaism and at the same time the
clear revelation of the ideas and aspirations imperfectly ex-
pressed in the doctrines of the Platonic school. Nominally
directed against the Jews, tht Bemonstratio quite as much as
the Praeparatio is really aimed at Porphyry’s treatise Against
the Christians, which by sounding the alarm in the name of
threatened traditions and philosophy, had reinforced among the
conservative 61ite the dislike or the new religion. The in-
numerable quotations from various writers, biblical or profane,
which form the staple of these two works of Eusebius, the
Praeparatio and Bemonstratk Evangelica, were put together and
published first, with the title of ‘introduction’ (etcraytfjyif), as
collections of plain extracts, while an express and detailed refuta-
tion of Porphyry’s treatise Against the Christians was given in a
separate work now lost which had itself been preceded by a reply
of the same kind to the pagan Hierocles, the author of a com-
parison intended to show that the merits of Apollonius of
Tyana were quite as exemplary as those of Jesus. In this reply
Eusebius made good use of his wide reading in overwhelming
Hierocles with an exposure of his plagiarisms; on Eusebius’
showing this sham writer had done nothing more than copy
Celsus and a re-reading of Origen was enough to refute him.
No doubt Porphyry was combated with a similar display of
learning.
Having disabused the minds of his readers of all the prejudices
fostered by pagan polemic and thrown light on the ancient origins
of Christianity and on the orientation and course of universal
history, Eusebius had only to deal with the period of its full bloom
since the teaching of Jesus to complete his panegyric on the new
religion. If he succeeded in demonstrating the constant loyalty
of the Church to the teaching of its founder, men should recognize
in it the realization of a work of salvation prepared and foretold in
the most distant past. The sufferings of the Jews abandoned by
God after the death of Christ and condemned to dispersion; ail
the power of the Faith borne witness to by the heroism of the
martyrs and by the failure of persecutions ; the permanence of the
teaching of Christ assured by the unbroken tradition of the
creed received from the holy apostles; finally the complete reali-
zation of divine promises wim the victories, to begin with, of
Constantine over Maxentius (fimt edition), later over Licinius
XVIII, V] EUSEBIUS’ POLEMIC 643
(second edition) and with the coming of the kingdom of God in
an Empire reconciled with the Church — these are the chief events
whose connection he wished to make clear in his Ecclesiastical
History. It was an indispensable work but one which no member
of the Church had hitherto attempted although, in his eyes,
a first sketch of it could be found in the corresponding part of
his Chronicle^. By means of the translation of Rufinus the work
soon spread throughout the Latin world, and made upon it a
profound and lasting impression^.
The relation of the method of Eusebius to that of the Alex-
andrine grammarians who were the first to try to put together a
history of profane literature is now well understood®. General
history in Eusebius comes out only through and by means of
literary history. His practice is patiently to collect and revise
texts, to date them and classify them, and finally to examine them
pen in hand in order to extract passages containing exact evidence
and proof; he draws up lists of succession (StaSoj^aQ of bishops
just as the grammarians drew up lists of succession for the heads
of the great philosophical schools ; for the martyrs he makes and
reproduces a selection of the best authenticated records of their
trials. Work of this kind is largely that of an archivist, and
Eusebius did not always avoid the danger of letting his main idea
disappear under a mass of documents. His literary skill and gift for
composition are insufficient to overcome the difficulties of his task;
for example, the periods represented by each of his chapters are
unequally enlarged upon according to the greater or less abundance
of the materials at his disposal. But, for all that, by means of
clearly marked guide-posts he keeps a systematic arrangement
where there seems only to be disorder; he brings out the stages of
history, and leads us to his goal, not by phrases but by documents;
and it is precisely this that gives an incomparable worth to what
he insists is an ‘ecclesiastical history,’ and to the whole bulk of
his writings, however slight their literary value may be.
It is hardly to be supposed that he did the work of an enquirer
(6crra)/)), that is to say of an enquirer irresistibly driven by
curiosity to the search for the truth, as the title he chose (ia-Topia)
might lead one to think. The time was really past even for the
historia of Greek learning, and Porphyry had not succeeded in
1 Hist. Reel. I, I, 5-6.
* E. Schwartz in P.W. s.v, Eusebios, col. 1406 sq.
® Cf. Schwartz, ‘Uber Kirchengeschichte,’ Nachr. d. K. Gesellsch. d.
Whs. ssM Gottingen, 1908, p. in especially, excellently summarized by
A. Puech, Histoire de la Litt.gr. chrit. ni, p. 181.
644 GREEK LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY [chap.
being more than an erudite compiler serving literary dilettanti.
Much more than he Eusebius was incapable of going against the
stream or recovering the lost spirit. It is not even as if his stimulus
was a purely scientific curiosity. He labours to propagate a faith
and his work is designed to further a particular cause. What he
looks for is the material of an advocate. He concerns himself only
with what suits him, and to suppress an irrelevant record seems to
him part of his task. It is no less true that in his anxiety not to
accept evidence or texts until they have been subjected to strong
criticism he draws his inspiration from the old historia \ and to form
a proper idea of the very great merits of his work, as of that of
Porphyry, whose rival he wished to be, it is enough to make a
comparison and consider, for example, how much genuine under-
standing and breadth of view is to be found in the organizers of
great modern encyclopaedias.
In the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius there is one other
feature to observe. This first picture of the Church’s past, which
was to give it a very real consciousness of itself and complete self-
confidence, was not simply a work conceived and carried out in
Greek, but was written from the point of view of the East. The
Christian communities of the Western half of the Empire count
for little; in the eyes of the historian the great unity of the mare
nostrum is fading, or rather, as the vital centre of the organism
grows weak, disintegration begins, and cracks appear foretelling
a more complete schism. When, for example, Eusebius discusses
heresies, the whole spectacle of the European part of the Medi-
terranean seems hidden from him. His knowledge of Tertullian’s
Apologetkum comes from a Greek translation, and he thinks
Tertullian was a Roman^ ; he discovers at Caesarea the writings of
Hippolytus of Rome, but carelessly enough locates somewhere or
other what he calls his ‘bishopric®’; he has no more regard for the
writings of Cyprian®. Even concerning the church of Rome the
conscientious archivist does not think it his duty to make himself
well-informed; at least, for several pontificates his chronology
seems to mix up years and months. But there is no reason for
surprise. How could a scholar faithful to the spirit of the school at
Alexandria give up his time to Latin ? Besides, at the time when
Eusebius concluded his Ecclesiastical History, men’s minds were
turned to the ‘New Rome’ of an Empire that had changed its
centre, and in Greek ecclesiastical histories the Latins were soon
to be referred to with a hint of contempt as Italians.
^ Hist. Eccl. II, 2, 4; Rufinus makes the correction. * Ik vi, 20, 2.
® Ik VI, 43, 3; Rufinus touches up (i>. 615 Mommsen).
XVIII, V] EUSEBIUS AND THE EMPIRE 645
The last part of Eusebius’ work belongs to a new period on
which we cannot enter. We may end by observing that in cele-
brating the Tricennalia of Constantine Eusebius glorifies an
Empire which will not become Christian except with the aim of
making the Church subordinate to it. The time is near when at the
councils questions of dogma become questions of politics, and the
choice of men in the succession (StaSo^iO of holy apostles is made
according to the purpose and will of the Government. Further
consideration cannot be given here to the relation of Eusebius’
work to the great theological and political conflicts which
threatened in his time, but this account of Eusebius may be
fittingly closed with this quotation: certainly, the scholarship of
the great disciple of Origen, Eusebius, ‘was employed to fashion
the political philosophy of the Byzantine world^.’
When the sack of Rome by Alaric shattered the dreams of
Ecclesiastical History, the. two halves of the Mediterranean were
already practically isolated from one another and shut up in two
closed vessels, and the shock of the catastrophe reached the East
only as an echo, as can be clearly seen by noticing how little space
is given to the event in the parallel narratives of the three synoptic
historians, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, and, after their
example, in the Tripartita composed by Cassiodorus for the W est.
Very soon after the death of Plotinus, his school is found
roughly divided into two spheres of influence almost without
inter-communication, that of lamblichus in the countries which
had long been hellenized, and that of Porphyry in the West which
still remained younger. It is a sign of an incompatibility of
temper, due, no doubt, to a difference in age, which begins to
part the two areas of the world which Rome had hitherto united
under its protection and which the pressure of nationalism was
finally to sunder.
^ N. H. Baynes, ‘Eusebius and the Christian Empire’ in Ann. de PInst.
de phil. et d'hist. Orient, ii, 1934, p. 18.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
I. THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHERS TO
CHRISTIANITY
T he histories of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea from the standpoint of a spectator of a later day may be
regarded as man’s preparation of the oikoumene for the rule of
Rome. The struggles of rival empires issue in the dominance of
the only Empire which has ever held in sole supremacy all the shores
of the inland sea. And the culture of this bilingual Mediterranean
world is itself highly complex, and in that complexity is mirrored
the fact that it is the legatee who has entered into possession of
the goods of many predecessors. But before this culture of the
Empire of Rome, the deposit of the pagan past, could become the
culture of the Empire whose heart was Constantinople it needed
yet a further contribution— the legacy of the Jew, the blood-
bought treasure of the Christian . That final fusion of the elements
which were to constitute the Byzantine inheritance came not
through the tranquil process of a peaceful evolution ; historically
it was effected through the violent reaction of a pagan counter-
reformation which failed and through the will of a Roman
emperor who had put the God of the Christians to the test and
had proved in his own experience that victory lay not with
Juppiter Optimus Maximus but with the God whom through
the centuries his worshippers had acknowledged as the Lord who
was strong and mighty in battle — the Lord of Hosts.
We stand at one of the turning points in the history of Europe
— at the moment when the old world of paganism is in travail,
when against its will it gives birth to the Christian Empire. The
Note. The principal sources for the persecution are the Church History
of Eusebius, Books vin and ix and his monograph on the Martyrs of
Palestine — a complete record of the persecution in his own province; for
the rest of the empire we have no such evidence. The pamphlet of
Lactantius — De mortibus fersecuterum — was written, it is true, by a
rhetorician maintaining a view of the divine government of the world, but
the work is still of high value as a historical source. For the critical
discussion of the authentic Acta and Passions see the Bibliography.
XIX, I] THE FINAL FUSION 647
pagan world might refuse to acknowledge its offspring : the child
might disclaim the links which bound it to a pagan past; but at
length the pagan came to realize that his gods could be abandoned,
that his literature, his philosophy and his art could outlive the
deities with which they had been so intimately associated. This
pagan culture, it was found, possessed a vitality which the Im-
mortals could not command, and on his side the Christian could
not forgo the inheritance of a world in which he had formerly felt
himself an alien, as but a sojourner in another’s city; the vessel of
polytheism which had contained the treasure of the past could be
broken and the treasure could still be preserved, the spoil of the
Egyptians could become the pride of the despised Galilaeans.
Thus in the fourth century of our era was brought about the final
fusion which was to determine the faith and the achievement of
the men of the later Empire. With the history of that momentous
fusion this volume is not concerned: we have but to sketch the
course of the crisis which made that fusion possible.
Roman State, Hellenistic culture, the Christian Church —
these are the three forces in the crisis : how did they stand towards
each other at the close of the third century.? A brief retrospect can
hardly be avoided. In the first century the new faith which had
been born amongst the mongrel population of Galilee of the
Gentiles, whose founder had been crucified as a common criminal,
could hardly arouse the serious interest of the Roman world : it
was but one more poisonous superstition from the East, the
fruitful mother of queer and revolting cults. Scorn — or perhaps
a scornful pity — for such delusion was all that could be expected.
But in the second century some notice had perforce to be taken
of the sect: a governor such as Pliny might be constrained to
acknowledge that the superstition appeared morally guiltless;
only the perverse obstinacy of the Christians offended the Roman’s
sense for discipline. The first writer seriously to attack the new
faith was, so far as we know, Fronto, the tutor of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius; his work is lost, yet it probably furnished to
Minucius much material for his statement of the pagans’ case.
But the world of culture still remained unconcerned, and when
about 180 Celsus published his True Discourse against the
Christians it may well have passed unnoticed^: pagan writers do
not mention the treatise, and it was only seventy years later that
the attention of Origen was called to the work; it is from his
^ “Celse s’etait adresse k des esprits trop peu alarms.” J. Bidez, Fie de
Porphyre,'^. b<).
648 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
elaborate reply that the greater part of Gelsus’ attack can be re-
covered. But the remarkable fact is that in its conception the True
Dwfoam was something more than a criticism : in developing
his argument Celsus may be led into sarcasm, ridicule and
bitterness, but originally he had, it would seem, intended the
True Discourse {a\r}6r)^ Xdyos) as an appeal for Christian co-
operation: if men withdrew themselves from the service of the
State, they were endangering the defence of the world of civilized
life threatened by the chaos of encircling barbarism. The work
ends with an invitation to share in the task of empire. The Plato-
nist does not as yet demand the ruthless suppression of Chris-
tianity: his message is rather that of Macedonia to the early
missionaries of the faith: ‘Come over and help us.’
And in the opening years of the third century, when the school
of Neoplatonism was being formed in Alexandria, it was a convert
from Christianity, Ammonius Saccas, who was the leader of the
movement, while Origen was the equal of his pagan contem-
poraries, and pagan and Christian could meet in a common search
for truth^.
That moment passed and it has been with plausibility suggested ®
that the hostility of Neoplatonism to Christianity begins with
Plotinus: it is true that in the Enneads there is no direct attack
upon Christianity, but the arguments marshalled by Plotinus
against the gnostics might prove of equal service against the
Christians. There were profound differences between the two
faiths ; in the thought of Plotinus, man needed no divine redeemer
to secure his salvation, man’s soul could by its own unaided
powers regain its first dignity (see p. 6a 8) ; the thought of Plotinus
is indeed entirely pagan. Of this his affirmation of the eternity
and incorruptibility of the world is sufficient proof, excluding as
it did the Christian dogma of creation as well as Christian escha-
tology. The Cross remained for the Greek foolishness and the
resurrection of the human body an absurdity. Neoplatonism and
Christianity, it has been said, were rivals destined to fight each
other. Under Gallienus persecution might be stayed: it was an
unintelligent method of attack, but the intellectual battle must
proceed. The forces of Hellenism must present a united front to
a foe who was more dangerous than Epicurean or Sceptic pre-
cisely because Platonist and Christian held so much ground in
^ Cf. R. Cadiou, La jeunesse d’Orighie, Part 3.
® C. Schmidt, ‘Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus und kirchlichen
Christentum,’ Texie und Unters. xx. Heft 4, 1900. Cf. P. de Labriolle,
La riactim pdienne, pp. 228 sqq, and Bidez, op. at. pp. 69 sqq.
XIX, i] THE CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC 649
common. When Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, resumes the
work of Gelsus, he writes no longer an appeal for co-operation,
but an uncompromising attack upon the Christian Church and
upon its sacred books : he gave to that attack the title ‘Against the
Christians^.’ Porphyry, scholar and critic, trained at Athens in
the school of Longinus, thus provided the arsenal from which all
the later critics of Christianity drew their weapons. His hostility
to the revolutionary sectaries who had deserted the traditions of
their fathers continued to be the attitude of the Neoplatonist
defenders of Hellenism.
But in the culture of the pagan world the Christians of the
third century also claimed to share. Christian missionaries had
naturally striven from the first to present their appeal to the
Gentile world through the medium of conceptions with which it
was already familiar. The Jewish Messiah thus became the Logos
of the Supreme God. It was sought to reinforce the Christian
message by showing that it was in conformity with Greek thought :
the earliest extant apology addressed to the world of pagan
culture called in evidence the words of ‘certain of your own
poets.’ In the second century the Greek apologists present
Christianity in so philosophic a form that at times it is no easy
matter to recognize that they are seeking to recommend the same
gospel as that proclaimed in the books of the New Testament^.
There can have been few missionaries who rejected all Greek
thought with the thoroughness of Tatian, who rejoiced in being a
‘ barbarian.’ Yet it may be doubted whether these earlier defenders
of the faith had many readers; it was in Alexandria through such
teachers as Clement and Origen that pagan thought was adopted
not merely as a missionary expedient, but was woven into the
texture of Christian theology. The De principUs of Origen is a
landmark, and from the influence of Origen, whether by attrac-
tion or repulsion, no later Christian writer could escape.
During the second half of the third century, while the Christian
Church was consolidating its position after persecution and in-
creasing its membership, pagan cults, it would seem, were
suffering severely from the economic crisis : ephemeral emperors
had neither time nor money for the endowment of religion, and
the liberality of private citizens was paralysed. The evidence of
1 de Labriolle, op. tit. pp. 223 The attitude of Porphyry to Jesus has
been much discussed, see Bidez, op. at. p. 77 and de Labriolle, op. cit. pp.
279 sqq. who gives references to the judgments of Harnack and Geffcken.
® An illuminating study of this aspect of the work of the early apologists
is C. N. Moody’s The Mind of the Early Converts, London, n.d. (1920).
650 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [ghap.
inscriptions tells the same story both in the Eastern and Western
provinces of the Empire This decline of paganism was the
Church’s opportunity: doctors, lawyers, rhetoricians— the repre-
sentatives of the culture of the day — were joining the Christian
community. Many were, however, still repelled by the prejudice
of the educated against the vulgar simplicity of the style of the
Christian scriptures in a world where literary form and verbal
elaboration were so highly valued the Christians were regarded
as ‘barbarians,’ ‘ignorant folk’ (d/jca^eorarot)^, completely
lacking in the charms and graces of civilized life. It is for pagans
such as these that Lactantius wrote his apologetic works. That
which constitutes the permanent importance of the writings of
Lactantius is that here one versed in the style and thought of
Cicero makes his appeal to men of culture, and selects for his
defence of Christianity the discussion of those problems with
which his pagan contemporaries were wrestling. In the De
Opifido Dei it is the problem of divine providence, maintained
against Epicurean denials, which is illustrated in minutest — and
sometimes humorous — detail by a consideration of man’s body
as the handiwork of God. In the De Ira Dei it is the impassibility
of God — divine justice demands that He should be angry against
the sinner : righteous anger is but an activity of divine providence.
It is this principle which inspires Lactantius’ interpretation
of history in the De mortibus fersecutorum. Jurists had WTitten
Introductions ilnstitutiones) to the study of law, and now the
time was ripe for an Introduction to Christianity' in which the
errors of paganism should be exposed and the true foundations
of Christian worship and Christian ethics set forth. During the
great persecution Lactantius produced his Divine Institutes. The
early apologists had made use of the evidence of the Hebrew
prophets : they were older than the oldest Greek scriptures, and
by the fulfilment of their prophecies their authority even for pagans
should be established. But Lactantius is writing for men of culture
who recognized no such authority in the books of the Hebrew
prophets, and thus his appeal is primarily to the works of pagan
authors or to works such as the Sibylline oracles which he failed
to recognize as coming from the hands of Jews or Christians.
A man trained in a rhetorical school is addressing those of his
own world. Modern critics of his work have complained that it
^ C£ J, Geffcken, Der Ausgang des griechisch-rdmiscken HeidentumSf
di. ii.
® Used as an argument in iavour of Christianity by Arnobius, Adv.
Nationes, i, 58 . ' Cf. Bidez, op. cit. p. 21.
XIX, I] PORPHYRY THE PAGAN REFORMER 65 1
lacks originality, that his attacks upon the gods of paganism are
composed of traditional material which could have had but little
relevance for those schooled in the philosophic thought of the
third century. It may be doubted whether such criticism is
justified. We have perhaps laid too much stress upon the signi-
ficance of the ‘ solar monotheism’ of Aurelian : it is not easy to say
how far the exclusiveness of that cult survived its founder’s death.
Philosophy does not proclaim a sole god : Plotinus is no mono-
theist^. The faith of philosophy is a divine monarchy, and the
Summus Deus rules over lesser deities each with his own sphere of
function. There was still reason to state the case for monotheism.
But that is not all : in face of the decline in the public cult of
the gods, Porphyry sought in his later years to arouse the cultured
pagan world from its religious lethargy by propounding startling
questions {a-rropLaC) which formed a challenge to its traditions
(in his letter to Anebo). His De abstinentia went further: here the
ascetic and religious enthusiast undermined the whole basis of the
public worship of the gods : in his last work, his ‘letter’ to his wife
Marcella, there are echoes of those Christian scriptures which he
had closely studied. But paganism refused to accept so dangerous
an ally from whose works Christians could draw such effective
material for their criticism of the older faith. Before the peril of
the Christian challenge this was no time to palter with a modernism
which made the largest concessions to the foe: the one thing
needed was a fundamentalism which admitted of no doubts,
which re-affirmed the whole portentous inheritance — gods and
statues, bloody sacrifices and libations, magic and theurgy,
lamblichus represents the spirit of one who writes after a pagan
Church has issued its encyclical Pascendi. There were, it would
seem, even those who thought that the Senate should perform the
function of a pagan Holy Office and establish an Index of for-
bidden books. On this list should be placed such works as Cicero’s
De natura deorum and De divinatione — books ‘ quibus Christiana
religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas®.’ It was
to no solar monotheism that Diocletian professed allegiance : it was
to many gods and to many local cults that he made his dedications.
The pagan revival of Diocletian is essentially polytheistic. Lac-
tantius knew what he was doing when he levelled his sarcasms
against the gods and especially against Juppiter and Hercules —
the patrons of the reigning Jovian and Herculian dynasties.
^ Cf. Geffcken, op. cit. pp. 49-50.
® Arnobius, jfdv. Nationes, in, 7, Cf. de Labriolle, op. cit. pp. 316—17.
652 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
The Divine Institutes have often been compared with earlier
Christian apologies : it might be more fruitful to read the work of
Lactantius alongside that of Porphyry’s closing years, for Porphyry
is not an original thinker, he does not stand solitary like Plotinus;
despite the tide of obscurantism which at this time overwhelmed
pagan thought there must have been not a few religious pagans
wiSi the scruples, the doubts and the aspirations of a Porp%ry to
whom Lactantius could address his apologia. Against the exter-
nalism of a religion of cultus and bodily acts Lactantius can
assert that it matters not hovs man worships; the fundamental
question is always vohat man worships. Over against vetustatis
auctoritas Lactantius sets his majestic appeaU to human reason
and the progress which can be made through man’s intelligence
and its criticism of tradition^. By their return to the past — in the
interest of the faith — the pagans have only rendered a reasoned
defence of that faith more difficult. Lactantius complains that
the supporters of polytheism flee from argument, since they have
no confidence in their own case; ‘et idcirco disceptatione sublata,
“pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res^.”’ *Cur enim tarn
crudeliter saeviant nisi quia metuunt, ne in dies invalescente
iustitia cum diis suis cariosis relinquantur Lactantius will
meet violence with the argument of Christian certainty.
As Lactantius had studied Cicero, so Methodius had become
familiar with Plato (see p. 6 1 7), while Africa produced in Arnobius
another apologist from the schools of rhetoric. The Adversus
Nationes, like the Divine Institutes^ was written during the persecu-
tion, but between the work of Arnobius and that of Lactantius
there is a vast difference. Indeed the fascination of the Christian
literature produced before the Council of Nicaea lies largely in
the fact that tradition and dogma did not confine men so closely
as they did in later centuries.
To Lactantius the divine Providence is the centre of his faith ;
Arnobius denies that Providence. For Lactantius the wrath of
God is a part of His justice; for Arnobius to attribute anger to
God is blasphemy. Lactantius had devoted an entire monograph
to the praise of man’s body as the handiwork of God; to Arnobius
man appears so miserable and abject that it would be an insult to
Highest God to regard Him as the creator of this bag of ordure
and of urine: some lesser power must have fashioned man’s
body. To Lactantius as to Origen the problem of evil can only
1 Div. Inst, y, 20. ® Cf. Eusebius, Praep. Evang. iv, 20-21.
* Div. Inst. V, I, 5. ■* U. Y , 12 , 13.
XIX, i] THE GIFT OF IMMORTALITY 653
be faced if we believe in the freedom of man’s will : Eusebius
redeems the weariness of the Contra Hieroclem by an impassioned
assertion of man’s freedom from inexorable fate^: to Arnobius
the soul of man has been so contaminated by evil influences in its
descent to earth that it possesses no freedom and thus before the
coming of Christ it could commit no sin. Christ offered to the
soul which in itself is not immortal the hope of immortality: the
rejection of Christ’s offer by the human soul brings sin to birth.
Whence this poor thing, the human soul, came we cannot know
and it is idle to enquire; what we can know is that its neutral
character with its bare potentiality of survival can be gloriously
changed by Christ into the fullness of a life which shall have no
end. At the heart of Christianity there is a profound pessimism —
‘without me ye can do nothing’ — but never has that pessimism
received more ruthless expression than in the Adversus Nationes.
‘If I had not come, they would not have had sin’: no one has
taken this text to heart as did Arnobius.
The devout worshipper of pagan images and pagan relics^ has
appropriated the salvation brought by Christ from the Supreme
God (a deo principe)x he has received the gift of immortality un-
known before®. This it seems was for Arnobius the decisive fact.
His Saviour Christ Jesus had abolished death and brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel. It is a strange
Christianity which the African rhetorician expounds, but the
triumph of a release from a great fear inspires the whole of his
bitter attack upon the gods. Hierocles in an apology for paganism
had sung the praises of the Summus Deus : we are the true wor-
shippers of the Summus Deus, retorts Arnobius, ‘magistro
Christo.’
At a time when Pamphilus with his band of loyal disciples was
labouring in selfless devotion to maintain the tradition of scholar-
ship inherited from Origen, when pagan rhetoricians were
deserting the schools to devote themselves to the service of the
Church, the culture of the old world was finding a home amongst
‘the barbarians’ : pagan and Christian shared a common apprecia-
tion of the legacy of the past; they were divided only by religion
or by a philosophy which was itself essentially religious.
1 Cf. Eusebius, Praep. Evang. vi, 6.
® 39 -
® I, 65.
654
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
[chap.
IL STATE AND CHURCH
What of the Roman State ? Repression of a faith may clearly
be either political or religious in its purpose: it may seek to avert
a social peril or crush a belief which may endanger the safety of
man’s soul. The ancient world, it has been said, knew of religious
cults, and of myths and legends, it had no dogmas which were
necessary for man’s salvation. Thus it could easily adopt the
principle ‘cuius regio eius religio.’ Rome did not seek to suppress
local cults, she rather endeavoured to affiliate them to her own
national traditions. The idea of an exclusive individual faith which
was not the traditional faith of a nation was foreign to Roman
thought: it was natural to interpret such a faith as merely a veil
for a deep-rooted hostility to State and Society. These sectaries
were bent on turning the inhabited world upside down : here was
a revolutionary transvaluation of all traditional values. To the
modern student of the history of the Roman Empire it is the
curious timidity of the Caesars which seems so remarkable — the
queer anxiety lest in any way the hard-won peace and security of
the Mediterranean world should be threatened : the establishment
of the Pax Romana had been bought at so high a price that even
a municipal fire-brigade in an Asian city was too perilous an asso-
ciation to receive imperial sanction. And in Christianity the
Caesars were faced by no municipal association, but by a far-flung
secret brotherhood. These ‘Bolsheviks’ must be suppressed. The
Roman persecutions of the Christians, as has been pointed out^,
have been judged by their effects and treated as the prototype of
religious intolerance. With regard to its motives the procedure of
the Roman State can be censured only as an excess of political
intolerance; in its results it constituted an undeniable violation
of the Christian’s liberty of conscience.
The persecutions of the Christians have been considered else-
where in this volume in their effects upon the life of the Church
(pp. place a brief retrospect is necessary in
wWch that repression may be viewed from the standpoint of the
Roman State. What was at first the precise legal basis for the per-
secution it is perhaps impossible for us to determine; was it
founded upon successive decisions of Roman magistrates acting
under their wide discretionary powers (coercitio), such decisions
gradually hardening into a binding presumption of law ? — or was
Ruffini, Religious Liberty, pp. 21-2; cf. T. Lyon, The Theory of
Religious Liberty in England 1603-3% Cambridge, 1937, P- sq.
XIX, xi] ‘CONQUIRENDI NON SUNT’ 655
there, as the present writer thinks probable, a direct imperial
pronouncement proscribing the sect? In any event, by the time
of Trajan it had become established that the persistent avowal of
Christianity carried as its consequence the penalty of death. From
that position, in the view of the present writer, the Roman State
never receded until a.d. 31 1 — until that year the Christian Church
was never granted express recognition as a lawful corporation
(but see p. 207)^. Yet experience proved that Christians might
be regarded as a peculiar brand of malefactors ; against them the
Roman magistrate was not under the obligation of proceeding on
his own initiative — ‘conquirendi non sunt.’ That initiative must
be taken by the informer, and recantation of his faith secured for
the Christian immunity from punishment. In fact the Roman
State no longer believed that Christians constituted a danger to
society, though repression of the sectaries might at times provide
a useful outlet for popular discontent. Toleration in our modern
world, it has been maintained, is the result of social development,
it rests solely on the basis of empiricism; ‘practically we are
tolerant because no harm comes of our being so 2.’ ‘Toleration is
one of the most valuable empirical maxims of modern politics®.’
When England in the early years of the nineteenth century dis-
covered that Unitarians were not in any way dangerous to the
peace and welfare of the kingdom but were ‘very decent, well-
behaved and well-to-do people’ the penalties imposed by 9 Wil-
liam III, c. 35 were repealed for their benefit so far as concerned
persons denying the doctrine of the Trinity^. Similarly Rome
discovered that the early Christians were no menace to the State,
but with traditional Roman conservatism the Empire did not pass
any relieving act. Parliament admitted that it had been in error;
the Caesars made no such direct admission.
^ In the view of the present writer, the contention that Christianity viras a
religio licita as maintained by G. Kruger, Die Rechtsstellung der vorkonstan-
tinischen Kirchen, Stuttgart, 1935, is untenable. Under what title (if any) the
Christian church held its property in the pre-Constantinian period is still un-
certain. To the references given in N. H. Baynes, ‘Constantine and the
Christian Churcli,’ Free, of the British Academy, xv, 71 ry. add L. Schnorr
V. Carolsfeld, Gesch. d. juristischen Person, x, especially iv Abschnitt, §18;
P. W. Duff, Personality in Roman Private Law, Cambridge, 1938, pp.
ibqsqq.
® Cf, Mandell Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance, London, 1895,
® A. J. Balfour, cited by Creighton.
* Cf. F. Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, London, 1882,
pp. 160 sqq.
656 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
Thus it was that even as late as the first half of the third century,
when some disaster or natural catastrophe such as an earthqualce
suggested that the gods were angered with men, the populace
might demand a persecution of the Christians in order to placate
the wrath of an outraged Heaven, and then it is the attitude of the
provincial governor which determines the severity of the repres-
sion : it is to the provincial governors that Tertullian addresses his
apologia.
During the early decades of the third century national Roman
feeling had been weakened ; the Seven had favoured the provinces
at the expense of Rome. When Caracalla had extended Roman
citizenship to the provincial population, the Empire became a
cosmopolis, and universalism could afford to be tolerant towards a
faith which had from the first claimed the whole inhabited world
for its Lord. Under a Syrian dynasty Origen could be summoned
to the imperial court. It might have seemed that the reconciliation
between the Roman State and the Christian Church would be
realized through a peaceful evolution and mutual understanding.
But the crisis of the third century brought other men and other
ways of thought to the fore. In the rude soldiery of the Danube
lands the Empire found its defenders, and on their side the Danu-
bian soldiers adopted with the enthusiastic conviction of the newly
converted the belief in the imperial traditions of Rome and its
pagan past^. It is this new romanism of the Danube lands which
revives the hostility of the Roman State towards those who had
abandoned the worship of the Roman gods. The millenary cele-
bration of the founding of Rome had recalled the pagan traditions
forcibly to men’s minds: Roman greatness had ever been de-
pendent on the favour of the divine powers — on the maintenance
of the Pax Deorum’. now that the Empire was threatened with
unexampled perils, how could success be more surely guaranteed
than by a massive demonstration of an Empire’s loyalty? It may
be suggested that some such thought led the Pannonian Emperor
Decius to issue his command that the entire population of the
Roman world should by the act of sacrifice attest its devotion to
the gods (see pp. 202, 521). The situation is changed: persecution
becomes once more the policy of the Roman State, though that
policy is now no longer sustained by any widespread hatred and
animosity against the Christians. The initiative in repression has
passed from the people to the central government.
^ Cf. A. Alfoldi, ‘Die Vorherrschaft der Pannonier im Rdmerreiche etc.,’
Fimfundmiamig Jahre RSmsch-germanische Kommsnm,
XIX, II] THE PERSECUTION OF DECIUS 657
But even so it is not easy to say whether the order of Decius
constituted in its motive a religious persecution of the Christians.
Decius, for the welfare of a Roman world threatened with disaster,
has resort to a religious act in which every inhabitant of that world
should do uniform homage to the gods of Rome: is not this Act of
Uniformity at least primarily a political measure ? It would seem
that Decius did not demand from the Christian any abjuration of
his own faith- — only that he should join in a ‘ supplicatio ’ such as
Rome had traditionally employed in times of national crisis. It is
by studying the persecution of another religious minority that we
may best understand this measure of Decius. The hardships suf-
fered by the Catholics in the early years of the reign of Elizabeth —
are these to be regarded as a religious persecution ? ‘Burleigh was
aiming at political power, and, for this, unity between Church and
State was necessary^.’ Elizabeth writes^ ‘The Queen would not
have any of their consciences unnecessarily sifted to know what
affection they had to the old religion,’ and if she has lately done so
in the case of a few prisoners ‘yet the cause thereof hath grown
merely of themselves in that they have first manifestly broken the
laws established for religion, in not coming at all to the church.’
The first clause repels the accusation of oppressing people for
their faith which is just what the second clause admits. Eliza-
beth’s subjects are free to believe what they will, if in the interests
of the State they join in the common worship.
Not dissimilar may have been the motive of the Emperor
Decius : by these assurances of devotion the gods of Rome should
be contented and render to the Romans the reward of their
loyalty. The sudden command to sacrifice falling upon the
Church after a long period of security caused wholesale apostasy,
but for our present purpose it is more interesting to note that
the Emperor’s conviction could hardly have been generally held
by those who were charged with the enforcement of the imperial
order, otherwise it would not have been possible for Christians
without compliance with that order to obtain so easily as they
did the official certificate of sacrifice performed; further, as soon
as the Emperor’s attention was diverted to military operations,
the proceedings against the Christians were suspended. The
persecution begun in the winter of 249 was already at an end, at
least in Carthage and in Rome, by the Easter of 251, although
Decius did not meet his death until the following summer*.
1 A. O. Meyer, England and the Catholic Church under §lyeen Elizabeth,
London, 1916, p. 89. _ * lb. p. 128.
® For another view of the Decian persecution see above, pp. 202 ryy.
42
C.A.H. XU
658 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
The outworn calumnies against the Christians were discredited :
pagans as well as their fellow-believers had been tended by the
Christians during the great plague which devastated the empire
in the middle years of the third century. Folk had come to know
this peculiar people and pagans shared with Christians in the
common life of the Roman cities. This change in popular senti-
ment is of the first significance for the understanding of the last
great persecution. Outside of Egypt there were, it would seem,
but few cities in the Roman East which emulated Gaza-^ in its
popular enthusiasm for the older faith ; in the Western provinces
Maxentius, though himself a convinced worshipper of the gods,
will find it prudent to adopt an attitude of tolerance.
The attempt of Valerian to break up the corporate life of the
Church by striking at the bishops and the clergy and by for-
bidding all assemblies of Christians is interesting, since it would
appear to have served as the model for those who instigated the
last great persecution. Valerian’s captivity in Persia, in the view
of Dionysius of Alexandria, was the vengeance of the God of the
Christians taken upon the oppressor of His people. Decius dead
on the northern frontier, Valerian in the hands of the enemy, not
a few pagans may have asked themselves: did such a result justify
the effort to restore the Pax Deorum ? It is certain that Gallienus
handed back to Christian bishops the property which his father
had confiscated, that the persecution was stayed, and that hence-
forth the Church was left in peace. The initiative of the Roman
State had borne no fruit which could encourage an emperor to
renew the challenge.
Between the Roman State and the Christian Church there had
stood no greater obstacle to reconciliation than the worship of the
emperor. The pagan could not understand the Christian objection
to this tribute of' respect to the ruler of the Roman world — the
Christian refusal puzzled and irritated many a well-meaning
Roman governor: it seemed to him, as to Marcus Aurelius, a per-
verse obstinacy. But what if the godhead of the emperor were
after all a mistake ? — what if the emperor were not God, but only
God’s vicegerent on earth ? It was to this conviction, it would
appear to the present writer, that Aurelian came : it was this view
of his office that Diocletian held — he was not Juppiter, but Jovius,
Juppiter’s representative, his colleague was not Hercules, but
Herculius. If this be true, the way to an understanding between
1 Cf. B. Violet, ‘ Die Pallstinischen Martyrer des Eusebius von Casarea,’
Texte md Unters, xiv, Heft 4, 1896, _p. 17. See also above p. 447 and S. A.
Cook, The Religion of Ancient Palestine in the light of archaeology, p. 1 86.
XIX, Ii] GHRISTIANS AND THE ROMAN STATE 659
pagan ruler and Christian subject was open, for even the pros-
ky nesis — the prostration before the emperor— which had now
become obligatory in court ceremonial — was not the worship of
a god, but merely the outward symbol of homage to a human
master. The cult of the emperors plays a very subordinate part
in the last great persecution^.
After the death of Valerian the Roman State had shown itself
ready to_ trust the Christian and to welcome him to its service,
and the individual Christian, whatever might be the official view
of the Church, was clearly prepared to respond to these advances.
The appeal with which Celsus had ended his True Discourse
seemed in a fair way to be answered. It is no easy task to form
any picture of the life of the ordinary Christian in the third cen-
tury : how far did the views held by the leaders of Christian
thought find expression in the contacts of believers with the pagan
world about them .? At this time when Christian exegetes could
maintain that it wanted yet another two hundred years before
the beginning of the ‘last things,’ the immediate expectation of
tht parousia, the second coming of Christ, had passed: what was
the Christian’s attitude to the Roman State, how far could he
participate in its administration? Early canons had condemned
military service. Origen is an intransigent pacifist; in the Contra
CeJsum.^ he had solemnly stated that Christians would not fight
for the emperor even when called upon for service; the Christian’s
prayers are his militia. Similarly in the West the condemnation
of ffie military profession is proclaimed with violent rhetoric by
the rigorist Tertullian, and again at the beginning of the fourth
century by another African, Lactantius^. Yet it is certain that
such prohibitions can have had but little effect upon the general
Christian practice. There were Christian soldiers in the Roman
army under Marcus Aurelius®; in the persecution of Decius a
small detachment of soldiers guarding a Christian prisoner de-
clared itself to share the faith of the accused^. During the crisis of
the third-century invasions the authorities doubtless asked no
questions; they may have even been prepared discreetly to refuse
1 Cf. H. Delehaye, ‘La persecution dans YArmee sous Diocletien,’ Acad,
royale de Belgique, Bulletin: Classe des Lettres etc., 1921, pp. 150-66.
2 Note that Maximilian and Marcellus were both Africans (see below),
3 There were soldiers of the xiith legion stationed in Melitene, a district
where Christianity early made many converts; cf. A. Harnack in Sitz.
Ber. Preuss. Akad. 1894, p. 835.
^ avvTcvytxa arparieoriKov, Dionysius of Alexandria ap. Eusebius, Hist.
42 -a
66 o THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
to notice that at the military sacrifices the Christian protected
himself from the demons by making the sign, of the cross, just as
the worshipper of Mithras was excused, it would seem, from
wearing the festival crown, since his god was his crown. There
must have been many Christians both in the civil and military
service of the Empire when Diocletian came to the throne. And
in the life of the municipalities Christians no longer sought to live
apart from their pagan neighbours : they held office as municipal
senators; apparently, to judge from the canons of the Council of
Elvira, they were elected even to municipal priesthoods. Save in
exceptional cases, as in the Tembris valley in Anatolia (see above,
p. 458^5'.), the Christian did not desire to endanger his fellow-
believers by any aggressive profession of his nonconformit}’- :
‘probably the same policy which placed on the gravestone an
appeal to “the god,” leaving the reader to understand in his own
sense a term common to both Christians and Pagans, modified in
similar slight ways many of the other forms of social and municipal
lifs^.’ Alongside of the growth of asceticism and of a morality of
ever-increasing strictness, there was admitted in practice amongst
Christians a second ethic of the life in the world It might well
have seemed that in the sphere of a common service of the State
conciliation was slowly winning the day.
Indeed it is interesting to observe that at the very time when
Christians were beginning freely to enter the service of the Empire,
pagan philosophers were losing interest in political life. Plotinus
sought to withdraw his friends from public office; ‘a senator,
Rogatianus, advanced to such detachment from political ambi-
tions that he gave up all his property, dismissed all his slaves,
renounced every dignity and on the point of taking up his praetor-
ship, the lictors already at the door, refused to come out or to have
anything to do with the office®.’ Celsus was profoundly con-
cerned for the defence of the Empire, but there is no trace of such
anxiety in the works of Porphyry^.
And, further, there remained the fact that throughout all the
persecutions no Christian had raised the standard of revolt®.
From the time of the earliest apologists Christians had indeed
constantly affirmed their loyalty to the emperor, for his power,
^ Sir W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, n, p. 504.
® For this the eighth chapter of the first book of the Demonstratio
Evangelka of Eusebius is evidence. Ed. Heikel, p. 39, 11 . 26 sqq.
® Porphyry, Life of P/otinus, 7.
* Bidez, op. cit. pp. 67—8.
® Tertullian, jfpal. 35.
XIX, m] DIOCLETIAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 66 1
however much he might abuse it, was God-given, and thus
prayers for the emperor had always formed a part of a Christian’s
worship. Here surely was a foundation upon which wise states-
manship might build. To some far-seeing Christians such as
Melito (see p. 461) there had already come the vision that Church
and Empire were in the Providence of God ordained not to
enmity, but to co-operation: Augustus and Christ were both the
bringers of peace to a distracted world: in God’s good time the
alliance thus foreshadowed would be accomplished fact. There
were many followers of Christ who were prepared to give their
loyalty to a State which, while sustaining order and justice, would
not demand of them apostasy from their faith. Lactantius is not
only a Christian, he is a Roman who shrinks with terror from the
thought that one day according to the scriptures of his religion
the Empire of Rome would pass, as had already passed the em-
pires of Babylon and of Alexander^.
III. DIOCLETIAN’S POLICY
This is the background against which Diocletian undertakes
his task of re-organization and reform : his effort is to unite all the
forces of the Empire and to harness them to the work of imperial
restoration. Why should he exclude those who are prepared to
lend their aid.^ He seizes the opportunity: it should be made
easy for Christians to play their part. Those who were willing to
hold office were freed from the obligation of pagan sacrifice. For
himself the Emperor chose the worship of Juppiter : he would re-
affirm as the delegate of Jove the religious past of Rome: his
colleague in the West should under the protection of Hercules
labour, as had his divine patron, for mankind: ‘c’6tait le reveil,
dans le monde romain, de ce double culte de Jupiter maitre du
Capitole et d’Hercule h6ros du Palatin qui, depuis I’origine,
avait fait I’orgueil et la saintet6 de la Ville Eternelle^.’ The gods
of paganism had not been, as was the Semitic Jehovah, jealous
deities; there was room in the working-out of his task for the col-
laboration of the worshippers of the Christian God. Statesman-
ship could hardly come to any other conclusion.
1 Div. Inst. VII, 15, 1 1.
2 C. Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule, vii, p. 50. Diocletian was a Dalmatian;
Juppiter and Hercules thus closely associated were specially worshipped in
Dalmatia: cf. J. Toutain, Les cultes pdiens dans P entire romain, i, pp. 405—7.
For the Roman— and not Oriental— character of the cult of Juppiter and
Hercules cf. G. Costa, Religione e Politica nelPimpero rotnano, pp. 32-87.
662 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
Some modern scholars have argued that the new reign began
with a persecution of the Christians: have we such evidence as
would constrain us to adopt this view? To the present writer this
appears to be a point of crucial import for the understanding of
Diocletian’s religious policy. Two considerations have to be borne
in mind: the contemporary historians Lactantius and Eusebius
have no knowledge of such persecution; Maximian, who was
appointed by Diocletian to rule the Western provinces of the
Empire, always followed faithfully the lead of the senior Augustus;
he cannot be thought to have originated a course of action to
which Diocletian was opposed. Nor is it likely, as some late
accounts of Christian martyrdoms would imply, that Diocletian
himself visited Rome shortly after his victory on the Margus
and there began an attack upon the Christians at the beginning
of his reign; for such a visit we have no independent evidence
save a statement in Zonaras^, and it would appear otherwise
improbable. The martyrdom of the Quattuor Coronati has been
placed at this time in Rome, but the Roman Passio deserves no
credence; S. Genesius, the converted actor, whose martyrdom
appears to be dated early in Diocletian’s reign, is probably not a
historical character: the S. Genesius whose cult was later cele-
brated in Rome may well have been S. Genesius of Arles, and the
story of S. Genesius the actor is, it has been plausibly suggested,
an adaptation of an Eastern legend. The Acta of S. Sebastian
cannot be used as a historical source^. The presumption would
thus appear to be unfavourable to the view that the new order
was inaugurated by religious oppression. For a persecution con-
ducted by Maximian in Gaul no reliance can be placed upon
the stories of the exploits of the ubiquitous Rictiovarus®; he has
all the appearance of being the creation of a hagiographer’s
imagination; it is possible that S. Maurice may have suffered
martyrdom for some breach of military discipline, but until we
can determine upon what sources the fifth-century account of
the sufferings of the Christians in the Theban Legion is based, the
historical student cannot use that document^. So far as the present
1 2!ionaras, xii, 31 (p. 614).
2 Cf. H. Delehaye, l^tude sur U Ligendier romain. Index r.w. Sebastianus.
® On Rictiovar (or Reciofarus, the reading of the oldest MS.) cf. C. Juilian,
‘Notes gallo-romaines, 100,’ Rev. it. me. xxv, 1923, 367-78, who thinks it
possible that there ntay have been such a person. For L. Duchesne, Pastes
episcopaux de Pancienne Gaule, m, 1915, pp. 141-52, he is a ‘personnage in-
connu d’ailieurs et tres ^videmment imaginaire.’
^ For the martyrdom of the Theban Legion see the Bibliography.
XIX, III] CHRISTIANS AND THE ARMY 663
writer can judge, there is no adequate ground for the supposition
that at this time either Diocletian or Maximian broke the religious
truce which had been preserved since the accession of Gallienus^.
We have seen that there were rigorists in the Church who
denied to the Christian the right to serve in the army, but that
this was not the general view^. In individual cases, it is true, the
old prejudice against the army was still alive. The father of the
young recruit Maximilian was a Christian veteran; he presented
his son for enrolment, but the son’s conscience forbade him to
serve. For this breach of military discipline Maximilian was put
to death, but here there is no question of pagan religious obser-
vance: Maximilian was not called upon to sacrifice to the gods.
Similarly at a feast given on the Emperor’s birthday Marcellus, a
centurion, stripped off his military belt, and declared that his
loyalty to Christ did not allow him to serve another master®. This
is not persecution by the Roman State ; it is the tradition of
Tertullian’s rigorism which thus suddenly awakened the scruples
of a Christian soldier.
The whole re-organization of the Empire was carried through,
the new Caesars were appointed, and still no religious difficulty
arose. And then, according to Lactantius, ‘some time^’ before
the general persecution, at a public sacrifice offered for the pur-
pose of learning the will of Heaven by inspection of the livers of
the sacrificial animals, the Christians in the presence both of
Diocletian and Galerius® crossed themselves to ward off evil from
^ For the legends of martyrdoms in France under Maximian in the early
days of the reign cf. the carefully guarded statement of the evidence in C. Jul-
lian, Mhtoire de la Gaule, Vii, pp. 67—72. He notes that ‘'aucun de ces martyrs
ne par ait appartenir d la cour ou h Varmie.' It is of course possible that a pro-
vincial governor may have proceeded against some Gallic Christians during
these years.
^ See above, p. 659.
® It is indeed stated in the Acta that this was done apud signa legimis, but
there is no statement that any cult of the signa influenced Marcellus. It
might be suggested that there was some connection with the new form of the
religion of the army of which Domaszewsld found evidence during the reign
of Diocletian — the worship of the genii: thus by the side of the genius
castrorum (which even precedes Juppiter O.M. in G.l.L. m, iiiii) we
find the genius legionis, the genius cohortium vigilum, the genius co-
hortium praetoriarum {C.l.L. vi, 216) while the genius Populi Romani of
the coinage would be, in Domaszewski’s view, that of the signa of the Roman
army: cf. Westdeutsche Zeitschr. 14,11895, pp. 1 13-14. For the Acta of
Maximilian and Marcellus see the Bibliography.
de mart. pers. 1 1 ; aliquanto tempore.
“ Div. Inst. IV, 27, 4, sacrificantibus dominis.
664 the great PERSECUTION [chap.
the demons. The augurs failed to find the customary marks on the
livers and repeated the sacrifice without result until the chief augur
Tagis pronounced that no answer had been obtained because of
the presence at the rite of profane persons. Diocletian was furious
and ordered that all in the palace should sacrifice and on refusal
be beaten : letters were sent to the military commanders that the
soldiers should sacrifice or be dismissed the service. It has some-
times been doubted whether so slight an incident could have had
so far-reaching an effect. But it must be remembered that Chris-
tians and pagans alike believed in magic : it was one thing to tolerate
Christians, another to allow them to disturb a solemn pagan rite.
Dionysius under Valerian had written of the Christians that
‘ indeed they are and were capable by their presence and through
being seen merely by their breath or word to scatter the designs
of the baneful demons^’ and in the Divine Institutes (not merely
in the De mortibus fersecutormn) Lactantius states that if a by-
stander makes the sign of the cross on the forehead, the pagan
priest can obtain no answer from the gods^. This has, he con-
tinues, often been the principal reason why bad emperors have
persecuted the Christians®. When account is taken of the beliefs
of the time, we have every reason to trust Lactantius. But the
trouble passed, and Diocletian took no further measures.
Galerius, it will have been noticed, had been present at this
public sacrifice, and, according to Eusebius, it was Galerius who
began the persecution: he forced the Christian officers^ in his
army either to sacrifice or to leave the service. This purification of
the army was carried through by a stratopedarches — a master of
the soldiery — acting, we must presume, under the orders of the
Caesar. One or two Christians suffered the death penalty, but in
what circumstances Eusebius does not tell us. If, as seems
natural, the stratopedarches of the Church History (vin, 4, 3) is to
be identified with the magister militiae of Eusebius' Chronicon,
these measures were taken between the years 298 and 301®. It
may be suggested that Galerius was acting under the order of
Diocletian reported by Lactantius. It is to be noted that in
A.D. 298 Galerius had won his brilliant success over Persia and
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vir, 10, 4.
® Cf. Arnobius, Adv. Nationes, i, 46, s.f.
^ Diy. Inst, iv, 27, 3 This may indeed be a reference to the letter of
Dionysius (pr^rved by Eusebius) attributing the persecution of the Chris-
tians by Valerian to the instigation of the magician Macrianus.
^ Cf. Delehaye, op. cif. p, 5 on Eusebius Hist. Eccl. vin, 4.
® Cf. A. Fliche and V. Martin (Edd.), Histoire de P£glise, ii, p, 458.
XIX, IV] THE AUTHOR OF THE PERSECUTION 665
this must have greatly strengthened his position. He hoped,
Eusebius says, thus to pave the way for a general policy of re-
pression.
In the winter of 302-3 Diocletian and his Caesar were both
in Nicomedia, and here, according to Lactantius^, Galerius
pressed upon his Augustus the necessity for a rigorous persecu-
tion of the Christians; Diocletian continued to resist. Galerius
was supported by a circle of Neoplatonist philosophers, among
them Hierocles who was at this time consular governor {consularis)
of Bithynia. Diocletian at length agreed to refer the question to
the oracle of the Milesian Apollo, who answered ‘ut divinae re-
ligionis inimicus.’ This must be the same consultation of the
oracle as that of which Constantine speaks^ when the god replied
that the just {pi SlkmoC) upon the earth hindered him from de-
claring the truth and that this was the cause of false oracles
issuing from the tripods®. To the insistence of his friends, the
Caesar and the god, Diocletian yielded, but only on condition that
blood should not be shed. In the opinion of the present writer —
an opinion which would certainly not meet with general assent —
both Eusebius and Lactantius consistently regarded Galerius as
the author of the persecution, and in that view he would concur.
IV. THE PERSECUTION
We cannot recover the text of the fatal first edict which in-
augurated the persecution — it is a curious fact that the text of no
imperial edict has been cited in the historical ^aa of the martyrs —
but the principal provisions can be stated with some certainty: the
Christian churches were to be destroyed, as well as, it would appear,
such private houses as were regularly used for Christian services ;
ail assemblages of Christians for worship were forbidden. The
scriptures and liturgical books were to be surrendered and
publicly burnt. Christians belonging to the higher classes were
deprived of their privileges, e.g. immunity from torture in
judicial process, and all Christians were placed outside the law,
being forbidden to defend their rights in the courts. Lactantius
closes his account of the edict with the words ‘libertatem denique
ac vocem non haberent.' Eusebius in the same position writes
‘ Those who were in “ oiketiai,” if they persisted in their profession
1 De mart. pars. 10 sq. ® Eusebius, Fita Const, n, 50. _
® The present writer is unable to follow H. Gregoire in his ‘‘restauration
un pen romanch peut-itre' of an inscription. Melanges Holleaux, pp. 81—91.
666
THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
of Christianity, were to be deprived of their freedom^.’ The
words have been much discussed, and their meaning is uncertain.
But the measures taken against the Christians by Valerian may
have served as a precedent on this occasion^: in the former perse-
cution Christians serving in the imperial bureaux, the Caesariani,
were, if they persisted in their faith, reduced to slavery® and it may
be suggested that this is the meaning of the phrase used by
Eusebius^.
It was decided that on the festival of the Terminalia (Feb. 23,
303) a term should be set to the Christian heresy: the imperial
agents entered the cathedral at Nicomedia, and the work of de-
struction began. The following day the edict was placarded in the
streets of the city: a Christian® straightway tore it down with the
taunt ‘More victories over Goths and Sarmatians.’ He was
arrested and burnt to death — ‘legitime coctus’ as Lactantius
writes®.
There was to be no bloodshed Diocletian had determined, but
that decision was abandoned when twice in succession fire broke
out in the imperial palace. On the second occasion Galerius
ostentatiously left the city — he was not going to be burnt alive
by Christian incendiaries. A plot of Galerius against the Chris-
tians — so Lactantius: arson by the Christians — so Galerius: the
palace struck by lightning according to the account of Constantine
as quoted in the Oratio ad Sanctos — the cause of the fire must
remain for us, as it was for contemporaries, a myster)% But a
charge of arson, then as in later times, may have served political
ends. Diocletian was furious, and, in the enquiry which followed,
many of the imperial servants met their deaths : for a short time
there seems to have been something like a reign of terror in Nico-
media. Then news came of revolts in Melitene and in Syria in-
stigated, it was said, by the Christians. The Church must be
deprived of its leaders. The clergy by a second edict were con-
1 Tcivi S’ €V oiiceTtaK el iTrijjLei'Oiev rp rmv X!^L<maviafim Trpodiffei
eXevBepta^ crepetcrBai Hist. Bed. Vtti, 2 , 4 (eXet'Pepta? (TTepter/ceaBat.
De mart. Pal. Praef. i).
^ E.g. no meetings of Christians to be held. ® Cyprian, Ep. 80.
^ The imperial chamberlains Dorotheus and Gorgonius are martyred
apM TrXeiotrtv 0 a<sikiKi}<i olKerim Hist. Ecd. vm, 6, 5; 0 re <yap
riyeftQvtKr)<i ot/ceTta? Bepdareov. De mart Pal. 1 1 ^ong version), Greek text,
Schwartz p. 9^3> Theodulus oixeTta'i irpanfiv Ttpr}^
rjBuopevos; ib. II, 24.
® By name Euethius, it would seem. P.W. s.v. Eusebios, col. 1402 s.f.
® De mart. pers. 13.
XIX, IV] THE VICENNALIA 667
demned to imprisonment: ‘an unnumbered host was shut up in
every place and on every hand prisons built long ago for murderers
and violators of tombs were now filled with bishops and elders and
deacons, with readers and exorcists, so that no longer was any
space left in them for condemned criminals^.’ In the days of
Elizabeth the Catholics similarly filled the prisons of England.
‘The prisons are so full of Catholics (1583) that there is no room
for thieves^.’ Just as the government of Elizabeth was troubled
by the problem of the cost of maintaining so many prisoners^, so
must have been the Roman State. In the summer of a.d. 303
Diocletian left for the West to celebrate his Vicennalia in Rome.
On this festival the customary amnesty was granted to criminals :
these were released, but the administration was still faced with
the question of the incarcerated Christian clergy. By a third edict
it was ordered that they were to be constrained to sacrifice and
might then be set at liberty. Every effort was made to enforce the
order : ‘ For in one case a man’s hands would be held and he would
be dragged to the altar; the foul and unholy sacrifice would be
thrust into his right hand and then he would be released as though
he had sacrificed. Another might never even have touched the
sacrifice, but when others declared that he had sacrificed, he would
go away in silence. Yet another was lifted up half dead and was
thrown down as though he were already a corpse; they freed him
from his fetters and counted him amongst those who had sacrificed.
While another was shouting and protesting that he would not yield,
he was struck on the mouth and silenced by a number of atten-
dants appointed for the purpose; finally he was violently thrust
out of the prison, even though he had not sacrificed. So anxious
were they by any and every means to seem to have gained their
end*.’ Thus at length the prisons were emptied®. At Caesarea
three members of the lower ranks of the clergy suffered death for
Use majestSy and on the same charge one at Antioch was martyred
while Galerius was present in the city.
During his visit to the West Diocletian fell dangerously ill,
and on his return to Nicomedia it appears that for a time he was
a mental wreck : it was reported that he was dead. On his recovery
he was so altered that men did not recognize him. During the
incapacity of the Augustus, Galerius seized his opportunity: he
1 Eusebius, Hist. EccL viii, 6, 9. ® Meyer, op. cit. p. 166.
® Ih. pp. 166—8. * Eusebius, de mart. Pal. i, 4.
® Not ail students of Eusebius would agree with this interpretation. To
the present writer it would seem difficult to explain the texts otherwise than
in the way here adopted.
668 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
issued the bloody fourth edict commanding all — men, women and
children — to sacrifice and make libation on penalty of death. The
dies traditionis — the delivery of the sacred books — gave place to
the dies ihurijicationts — the day of the offering of incense. The
present writer has suggested that Galerius enforced the acceptance
of this policy upon Maximian, the Western Augustus, by the
threat of leading against him the troops which had recently
defeated Persia. Galerius would present his Augustus with a fait
accompli, ilnd the answer of Diocletian to that challenge was the
abdication both of himself and of his Western colleague^.
This view is, it should be clearly understood, a hypothetical
reconstruction of the course of events, and it is not the interpreta-
tion adopted by most of those who in recent years have studied
the period^. For them, persecution of the Christians is the neces-
sary and logical completion of Diocletian’s reform; the ruler, they
urge, who had placed himself under the protection of the Father
of gods and men, the essentially Roman deity Juppiter Optimus
Maximus, who stood for the old Roman faith to which the folk
of his Balkan homeland had become enthusiastic converts — he
must, if he were consistent, ruthlessly suppress the one serious
rival creed which throughout the empire was daily gaining ground.
They can point to his support of traditional views on the sanctity
of marriage, and above all to the language of his violent edict
against the Manichaeans (p, 339). Diocletian as the last of the
Romans was fated to be the instigator of the most formidable of
the Roman assaults upon the upstart faith. It is a strong case.
And yet to the present writer it would appear that against the
weight of contemporary evidence it cannot be sustained : we have
no adequate reason to believe that the reign began with persecu-
tion; rather, after his accession, Diocletian opened the way for
Christians to enter the service of the State; once, as we have seen,
in his presence at a solemn public ceremony the Christians by the
magic of the sign of the cross defeated his desire to learn the will
of his own gods. For the moment he was indignant — we may
perhaps say, not without reason, but the momentary anger passed :
for twenty years under an unquestioned absolutism a policy of
toleration was maintained, and in his capital, Nicomedia, the
Christian cathedral faced the imperial palace. At a time when the
most formidable foe of the Empire was Persia, Diocletian attacked
1 Class, ^art. xvm, 1924, pp. 189 sqq; See, however, p. 340.
® Cf. e.g. K. Stade, Der Pelitiker Diekietian und die letvste grosse Chrhten~
verfolgmg.
XIX, IV] THE POLICY OF DIOCLETIAN 669
the Persian faith of the Manichaeans: those at least who have
lived through the Great War should recognise war-time propa-
ganda when they meet with it in an earlier period. And contem-
poraries tell us that to the last Diocletian strenuously resisted the
introduction of a policy of repression, and yielded only on condition
that there should be no bloodshed. Surely the facts, so far as they
can be established, point irresistibly to the conclusion that with
Diocletian statesmanship had overruled religious fanaticism: he
would facilitate that process by which the sojourner in an alien
city should come to keep house together with the pagan and
through this ‘synoikism’ acknowledge his imperial citizenship
and shoulder the common burden of the defence of the Roman
world before the instant menace of barbarism. Constantine had
been Diocletian’s companion at the Eastern court: Constantine as
a Christian completes the work of his pagan instructor, that work
which the bloody decade of persecution had interrupted. Diocle-
tian had marked out the way of reconciliation between the faiths:
but Galerius did not share the outlook of his Augustus, and at
last, supported by Neoplatonist philosophers and by the oracle of
Apollo, Galerius carried the day.
Diocletian’s abdication is the sequel to the victory of Galerius.
It was generally thought, we are told^, that Constantine had been
selected by Diocletian for promotion to the rank of Caesar; but
the new policy demanded new men, and the choice was doubtless
left to Galerius who now became Augustus in the Eastern pro-
vinces. Severus was appointed Caesar under Constantins (now
senior Augustus) and Maximin Daia, the nephew of Galerius,
became the latter’s subordinate in the East. It yet remained to be
seen whether Constantins would insist on his right to determine the
religious policy which his colleagues should pursue: Galerius and
his Caesar for a time were content to wait: thus for a whole year
there was not a single martyrdom in Palestine^. When Con-
stantins had recalled Constantine to the West and made no move
to control the action of the Eastern Augustus, the policy of per-
secution was resumed. Maximin’s new edict (early in a.d. 306),
as we learn from Eusebius, called upon the provincial governors
everywhere to enforce upon all — men, women and children — the
obligation to sacrifice to the gods. The brutal repression of the
Christians was continued with redoubled energy, and by his
1 Lactantius, De mart. pers. 19.
2 There may thus have been some shadow of plausibility in Maximin’s
statement made in the letter to Sabinus, Eusebius, Rist. Eccl. vc, 9 a, 2.
670 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap,
presence both in Antioch and in Palestine Maximin stimulated
the administration to greater excesses of cruelty.
No general history of the persecution can be written, for, so far
as we know, the example of Eusebius in giving a detailed chrono-
logical account of the sufferings of the martyrs and confessors of
Palestine of which he had been an eye-witness was not followed
in any other province of the empire. Crowds of renegades pressed
to the pagan altars, and for a time it may well have appeared to
Maximin that a policy of frightfulness would be crowned with
success. But throughout the early histoiy of the Church Christian
leaders had never forgotten that their message was not addressed
to men of intellect alone: pistis, the faith of the simple believer,
and gnosis, the higher knowledge of the initiate, had each their
place and justification in the Church, Through the writings alike
of apologists and theologians the width and range of the gospel
proclamation were maintained, and in the hour of crisis that
loyalty of the Church to its catholic mission was splendidly re-
warded. When bishops failed, w'omen and girls, young men and
uncultured folk endured the extremest torture which malignity
could devise. ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his com-
mandments .... For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the
world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our
faith.’ Against that faith the will of an emperor was powerless.
It would appear that after July 308 the persecution in Palestine
was stayed for more than a year. Unfortunately the Syriac trans-
lation of the longer version of the. Martyrs of Palestine seems at
this point to have an omission in the text. We read^ that a heavy
blow was sent down from God upon the tyrant Maximin, but
what this was is not explained; there is no parallel phrase in the
Greek of the shorter version, but here^ Eusebius states that he
who had received authority to persecute, as a result of some excite-
ment (avaKivjjcrts), was again inflamed against the Christians
with renewed passion®. But the meaning of the respite is apparent.
In the autumn of a.d. 308 took place the meeting of Diocletian,
Maximian and Galerius at Carnuntum (see p. 347); Maximin
hoped as the result of that conference to receive recognition as
Augustus from his colleagues. That hope was disappointed: at
Carnuntum his claim to tlie title was ignored, and when he later
sought to extort it from Galerius, his demand was refused. This
must surely be the ‘ heavy blow’ to which Eusebius refers. During
^ Cf. B. Violet, Hie falastmischen MSriyrer, etc., p. 66.
® De mart. Pal. 9, i.
® The words ef vvapx^s nxay imply ‘he made a fresh start.’
XIX, IV] THE ‘PALINODE’ OF GALERIUS 671
the latter part of the year 308 Maximin’s attention was diverted
from the persecution of the Christians, and it seems that there was
so little enthusiasm in Palestine for a policy of repression that
forthwith the persecuted ceased to be molested. Maximin’s anger
and humiliation were reflected by the issue in a,d. 309 of a new
edict. The pagan temples were to be rebuilt and every one— even
babes at the breast— were to be present at the public sacrifices
and were to taste of the flesh of the victims ; every article exposed
for sale in the market was to be defiled by libations and sprinkling
of the sacrificial blood. Even to the pagans this edict appeared
burdensome and excessive: it was they felt, ‘out of place’ : they
had had more than enough of such oppressive measures^. Maxi-
min perhaps felt that he was no longer supported by public
opinion: mutilation of resolute Christians and relegation to work
in the mines now generally take the place of the death penalty.
In Palestine the first martyrdom under the new edict is dated to
November 309, but already in March 310 the revival of persecu-
tion has spent itself and when in 31 1 the superintendent of the
copper mines desired to take action against the confessors there,
it is felt to be necessary to apply directly to Maximin for fresh
authority before making any move. Of these facts surely only one
interpretation is possible: the Roman East was sick of blood-
shed.
It was in this year (311) that the unexpected happened:
Galerius, the author of the persecution, suffering from a horrible ill-
ness, issued an edict which was published in Nicomedia on 30 April.
By that edict the persecution was stayed and the Christians
were accorded legal recognition. Origen had written — we have
only the Latin translation of the homily ^ — ‘decreverunt [if. prin-
cipes Romani] legibus suis ut non sint Christiani’: now for the
first time that principle is explicitly revoked: Galerius determines
‘ut denuo Christiani sint’ — the tolerance which Christianity had
in fact enjoyed in the early years of Diocletian’s reign is restored
and is based upon direct imperial enactment. The Latin text of
the edict is preserved for us by Lactantius®, while Eusebius* ‘as
best he could’ translated it into Greek. The modern student has
good cause to sympathize with Eusebius in the perplexities
of his task, for the edict presents many difficulties to an
interpreter. Those difficulties cannot be discussed in this place,
* (»9 ai' veptrrrju ^Si] ttjv aroTriav /eaTafieiJi,<j>oiJ,ivcoii. Eusebius, de mart.
Pal. 9, 3. ® /« Lih. Jesu Nave, Hormlia tx, 10.
® De mart. pers. 34. * Eusebius, H/rf. Eccl. viii, 17.
6 j% THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
but of this ^ palinode^ ;of ...Galerius a translation miist be at-
tempted:
‘Among other steps which we are always taking for the profit and
advantage of the State we had formerly sought to set all things right
according to the ancient laws and public order (disciplinam) of the Romans
and further to provide that the Christians too who had abandoned the way
of life (sectam) of their own'fathers should return to sound reason (ad bonas
mentes). For the said Christians had somehow become possessed by such
obstinacy (read (mala) voluntas) and folly that, instead of following those
institutions of the ancients, which perchance their own ancestors had first
established^ they were at their own .will and pleasure making laws for them-
selves and acting upon them -and were assembling in different places people
of different nationaiities. After, webad decreed that they should return to
the institutions of the ancients, many were subjected to danger, many too
were completely overthrown; and when very many (or ‘most’—plurimi)
persisted in their determination and we saw that they neither gave worship
and due reverence to the gods nor practised the worship (observare) of the
god of the Christians, considering our most gentle clemency and our im-
memorial custom by which we-are wont to grant indulgence to ail men, we
have thought it right in their case too to extend the speediest indulgence
to the effect that they may once more be free to live (sint) as Christians
and may re-form their churches^ (conventicula componant) always pro-
vided that they do nothing contrary to (public) order (disciplinam). F urther
by another letter we shall inform provincial governors (iudicibus) what
conditions the Christians must observe* Wherefore in accordance with this
our indulgence they will be bound to entreat their god for our well-being
and for that of the State and for their own so that on every side the State
may be preserved unharmed and that they themselves may live in their
homes in security.’
This is an edict of toleration: that word * pre-s'upposes the
existence of a religious State, that is to say, of a State which be-
lieves it necessary for itself to make as a collective person profes-
sion of a certain religion just as if, like its individual members, it
had a soul to be saved And the State compelled by necessity
to admit other religions within its territory cannot but disapprove
of them even when tolerating them: 'Toleration presumes an
authority which has been and which again may become coercive:
an authority which for subjective reasons is not brought to bear
on the dissenting group. It implies. . .voluntary inaction on the
part of the dominant group ' % that group having waived in favour of
a minority prerogatives which it regards as inalienable and absolute.
^ An attempt to preserve the ambiguity of the Latin text.
^ Ruffini, Gp, cit. p. lo.
^ Cf. W. K.. Jordan, The Demhpmmi afReiigims Tderatmn in England^ i,
pp. 17 sqq.
XIX, IV] THE DEATH OF GALERIUS 673
Thus at the opening of the edict the language of earlier con-
stitutions is recalled : 'Ctitanoia (= <mala>voluiitas)j the stultitia of
the Christians, the danger of their cosmopolitanism in breaking
through the wall of partition which separated one national re-
ligion from another, while the grant itself is conditioned by an
elastic proviso that nothing must be done ‘contra disciplinam.’
It has been doubted whether the recognition granted to Christians
would carry with it the further right to make new converts from
the pagan world: did the words ‘conventicula componant’
authorize the rebuilding of churches destroyed in the persecution ?
— what were the instructions contained in the letters sent to pro-
vincial governors — instructions which later seemed to Constantine
and Licinius ‘mischievous and alien from our clemency^’? It
must further not be forgotten that there is no word in the edict of
restitution of property of the Church which had been confiscated
by the State or which had passed into private hands. The signi-
ficance of the palinode must not be overrated; but at the same
time it must be recognized as a momentous triumph for the
Christian Church. Not only had individual freedom of conscience
been won for the Christians, but also that further step on the
ladder of religious liberty, the right of assembling themselves
together^ for common worship which Vinet once defined as the
liberty of conscience of associations. The supreme effort of the
pagan State had failed : Eusebius realized that it was a historic
moment : with the text of the palinode issued by the author of the
persecution he closed the first edition of his history.
Origen had said that a Christian’s prayers were his service to
the State — his ‘militia’: it was for the prayers of the Christians
alike for Emperor and Empire that Galerius asked. But the
prayers availed him nothing ; a few days after the issue of the edict
he was dead.
Lactantius and Eusebius agree that it was the fatal illness of
Galerius — an illness which reminded Christian apologists of the
sufferings of another persecutor, Herod of Judaea — which led to
the issue of the edict. Modern students have not been content
with that explanation. To one it has seemed that it must have been
inspired by Licinius, another has maintained that Galerius yielded
to the insistence of Constantine. It might not be easy to find any
evidence in our authorities for either of these views. Is it not
somewhat strange that both Lactantius and Eusebius should have
^ Eusebius, Hist. EccL x, 5, 2—6.
^ On liberty of worship c£ RufEni, op, clt, p. 1 3.
674 the great PERSECUTION [chap.
missed so magnificent an opportunity and have failed to claim
credit for the issue of the edict on behalf of the two emperors who
were later to grant to the Roman world a yet wider liberty? If
Galerius in his mortal sickness sought anyone’s advice it might
perhaps be suggested with greater plausibility that it was his wife
Valeria, who was known to be in close sympathy with the Christians,
who counselled him to placate the God of the persecuted.
With the palinode of Galerius a chapter closes. No history of
the great persecution, it must be repeated, can be written; it is idle
to attempt to estimate the number of those who gave their lives
for the faith. On one day in Egypt one hundred Christians were
martyred: in Palestine during all the years of the persecution not
one hundred were put to death. Of the extent of the repression in
Asia Minor where Christianity w'as strongest we can form no
impression. In Phrygia we are told a whole towm w^as Christian :
in the persecution it was surrounded by soldiers who under orders
from the governor burned to death the entire population since
none would deny their faith It has been suggested that this
town may have been Eumeneia, for inscriptions found there cease
c. A.D. 300 : ‘the contrast between the rich intellectual and political
life of the Christians in the third century and the inarticulate
monotony of the many centuries that succeeded is painful; one
recognizes. . .the signs of a great misfortune. . .the destruction
of a vigorous and varied life^.’ Thus, it has been contended, the
persecution by exterminating the most progressive part}' in the
Eastern cities destroyed the last chance that the Empire had of
regaining vitality and health. ‘Massacre then, as always, was
proved to be not merely a crime and a stupendous folly, but also
a terrible blow to the world, to civilization, and to humanity®.’
But the student can hardly avoid the question whether both
Eusebius and Lactantius did not mention the disaster suffered by
this Phrygian town precisely because it was an exceptional
atrocity. We have not, so far as the present writer knows, any
descriptions from other provinces of such wholesale martyrdoms
as in Egypt, and here conditions were peculiar, and attention has
not always been paid to the evidence of Eusebius, who knew
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vni, ii. Lactantius, Div. Inst, v, ii, 10.
® Sir W. M. Ramsaj, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ir, pp. 502—9.
® “Christianity was the reli^on of an educated people and the last and
worst evil of the long struck was that in Diocletian’s persecution the nnore
cultured section of the Church was to a large extent killed out:. . .educa-
tion deteriorated and the quality of society in general was depreciated.” Sir
W. M. Ramsay, Pauline and other Studies, p. 1 15.
XIX, IV] ROMAN GOVERNORS AND CHRISTIANS 675
been in that country during the persecution.
Here, he expressly states, Christians formed the majority of the
population Christ went down into Egypt because idolatry took
its rise there, and the Egyptians were formerly the most super-
stitious of peoples ; because of Christ’s visit the word of the gospel
teaching flourished amongst the Egyptians more than anywhere
else^. The spirit of idolatry which in Egypt is still active (elcreVt
vvv) keeps the Egyptians in a ferment plotting against the Chris-
tians in order to extinguish Christianity and blot it out. Countless
times (jnupta Se ocra) have they enquired of their gods against
us in oracles and prophecies and of the demons that lurk in the
statues and of the ^engastrimuthoV vfho were once so powerful
amongst them, and yet have no profit from them. Believing in
these demons and being set in action by them, they raise per-
secution against the church of God*. In ‘every place and town
and countryside’ a Christian altar is to be found: nay more, every
town and every house is divided by a civil war waged between
Christians and idolaters^. These statements are made in proof of
the fulfilment of a prophecy of Isaiah®, but they are too definite
not to be based upon facts which were known to Eusebius, and
they serve to explain the ferocity of the persecution in Egypt.
Elsewhere the reluctance of governors to impose the death
penalty is often striking. There is an instructive chapter in the
Divine Institutes^', governors would boast that they had not put
to death any Christians : they would resort to any torture in order
to break down the resistance of the Christian. ‘ I saw in Bithynia,’
writes Lactantius, ‘the governor wonderfully elated as though
he had subdued some barbarian tribe, because one who had re-
sisted for two years with great spirit appeared at the last to yield.’
It was the cruel persecutor who was most merciful because the
end came swiftly. Governors would try to make it easy for the
accused. A Christian when called upon to sacrifice to the gods
replied ‘There is but one God only, the Creator.’ Flavian, the
ruthless governor of Palestine, is prepared to assent : he changes
1 Christ has ransomed the souls of the Egyptians so that tou? irXeiov<;
rjStj T&v /car’ AiyvTTTOv koX ravTf]'; cuTrrjkXdgdai voaov. Praef.
Evang. in, 5 r./.
2 ho KoX Trdvrmv dvdpcoTrtov fjbSXXov irap' AlyvirTiot? lagyaev 6 ryf
evayyeXiKrj<; avrov BtBaaKaXCa'i X6yo<;. Demonstr. Evang. vi, 20, 9: cf. ib.
IX, 2 , 4 and IX, 2 , 6, fivpia TrXydt) of the inhabitants deserting paganism
eri icai vvv tov t&v okwv opoXoyei fvovov elBevac 6eov.
® Demonstr. Evang. vi, 20, 16— iq*
* Demonstr. Evang. viii, 5. ® Isaiah xix, 1-4.
y, II.
676 THE GREAT PERSECUTION [chap.
the order ‘Then sacrifice to the emperors^.’ Another governor
was ready to accept a sacrifice ofiFered ‘to the only God^.’ If we
may regard the of Philip bishop of Heraclea^ as historical,
it would appear that the governor, whose wife was a Christian, had
taken no steps to execute the early edicts: he acts only after the
issue of the fourth edict and enforces both the first and fourth
edicts at one and the same time. It is interesting to observe a
business-like and conscientious Roman official at his work in
Africa making an inventory of confiscated property. There is no
violence, simply the scrupulous performance of a tiresome duty^.
And it must never be forgotten that Christians were at times
provocative. When Hierocles in Egypt had condemned a Chris-
tian virgin to confinement in a brothel, Aedesius knocked him
down and continued beating him as he lay on the ground. A care-
ful study of The Martyrs of Palestine reveals a surprising number
of cases where Christians compelled the governor to take notice of
them, while their refusal to answer the formal questions concern-
ing their place of origin must often have been exasperating®. On
one occasion several of the accused replied that their home city
lay in the East : it belonged to the Christians alone, and was called
Jerusalem®. The governor became alarmed and thought that the
sectaries were creating for themselves a centre hostile to Rome
where the disaffected could assemble and live as Christians, much
as Plotinus almost persuaded Gallienus to allow him to found a
state where men should dwell under Plato’s laws'^. Platonopolis
would have been situated in Campania: the Jerusalem of the
Christians, however, was in Heaven. During the persecution
governors were guilty of hideous brutalities, but it must be re-
membered that many of them must have found the task which the
government imposed on them a sorry duty. And some of the
simple stories of Christian confession under extreme torture are
still to the modern reader things of wonder and of beauty: to
extract a sentence or two is useless: those confessions must be
^ Eusebius, De mart. Pal. c. i (Long version).
® Passio of Phileas and Philoromus, i : cf. De mart. Pal. 10, 2: 1 1, 30.
® Ruinart, Jcta Martjrum, edn of 1 859, pp. 440 sqq. At least the speeches
are surely only literary: cf. J. Geffcken, Zwei Grieth. Jpoiogeten, p. 249.
* Proceedings before Zenophilus, Appendix to the work of Optatus
a^inst the Donatists. Note that some excesses of Roman magistrates are
due m interpolations in otherwise historic Acta — a good example is to be
found in the Acta S. Crispinae, Ruinart, of. cit. pp. 47 7 sqq. See the study of
these Acta by Monceaux in Miktnges Boissier, pp. 383-9.
® Eusebius, de mart. Pal. 4, 12. ® De mart. Pal. 1 1, 9-13,
Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 12.
XIX, IV] THE FAILURE OF THE PERSECUTION 677
read in their setting. Paul’s prayer before his execution — for
Christians and Jews, for Samaritans and the pagan world, for the
judge who had condemned him and for the executioner— reduced
the multitude of spectators to tears: when the martyred bodies of
Christians were left for beasts to devour and none might bury
them, the sympathies of the pagans of Caesarea were with the
persecuted : in Alexandria pagans sheltered the Christians in
their own homes. When Hierocles and another pagan apologist
published attacks upon the Christians during the persecution,
even pagan opinion disapproved. The government had outrun
pagan animosity ; it was no wonder that Lactantius thought that
God had permitted the persecution in order to bring the pagans
within the community of the Christian Church.
CHAPTER XX
CONSTANTINE
L THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE
T he later Roman Empire was stamped with its own peculiar
character by the genius of two men— Constantine and Jus-
tinian — and both were sons of Balkan peasants. Theodora the
wife of Justinian was in her early days a prostitute; Helen the
mother of Constantine was, tradition said, a serving-maid in a
Balkan inn, and neither did dishonour to the proud position of an
imperial Augusta. The precise date of Constantine’s birth we do
not know: but it was at Nish and probably about a.d. 280 that
Helen bore to the soldier Constantius the boy who was to become
the first Christian emperor. When Diocletian had appointed Con-
stantius to be a Caesar of the Herculian dynasty with the task of
recovering Britain from Carausius, Constantine was sent to the
East where he became the companion of the senior Augustus : he
was with Diocletian in Egypt in 296-7. As a young man he
came to know the Christianity of the Asiatic provinces and he saw
the part which Christians were playing in the administration and
at the court of Diocletian. Men thought that in due time he would
be appointed Caesar : he would not be unprepared for the task. In
the East he saw the change of policy which was the work of
Galerius and the beginnings of the bloody persecution; after the
abdication of Diocletian he was kept in the East by Galerius as a
useful hostage. But Galerius could not refuse the demand of Con-
stantius, now senior Augustus, that his son should join his father
in Gaul, and when Constantius died at York (July 306) Constan-
tine was hailed as emperor by the soldiers. Constantine sought
the recognition of Galerius, and the latter acknowledged him as
Note, The principal sources for the reign of Constantine down to the
Council of Nicaea are the Anonymus Valesii, a fragment of a history
probably written by a contemporary; the Latin Panegyric! for the official
expression of the policy of the rulers of the Roman West: the bitter
pamphlet of Lactantius — mortihus persecutorum — which is yet of great
historical value; the Church History of Eusebius and his Fits Constantini,
the latter a panegyric rather than a biography; the documents on the
Donatist Controversy preserved by Optatus are of outstanding importance.
XX, I] THE PERSECUTION IN THE WEST 679
Caesar in the West, while Severus was appointed to succeed
Constantius as Augustus.
The history of the following five years has been told in another
chapter (pp. 344 jyy.) and but little remains to be said here. Con-
stantius had, it would seem, enforced the first edict of persecution
so far as to destroy some Christian churches, but further than that
he would not go^. The Donatists in Africa knew that in Gaul
Christians had not been compelled to surrender their scriptures
to the representatives of the Roman State : in the lands ruled by
Constantius there had been no traditores. Constantius himself
probably believed in the divine monarchy of a summus deus — a
belief which might at times approach a pagan monotheism;
officially he worshipped Hercules the divine patron of the dynasty.
Severus, so far as we know, followed the lead of Constantius, and
the Christians remained unmolested. Thus after the abdication of
Diocletian persecution ceased in the Western provinces of the
Empire. There can, indeed, have been no enthusiasm amongst the
pagans for a policy of violent repression: even in Rome itself
Maxentius, when he had seized imperial power, although a pagan,
thought to win popularity through granting toleration to the
Christians^. Pope Marcellinus died in a.d. 304: in 307 the
Roman Christians could proceed to a new election. Marcellinus,
it would seem probable, had betrayed the faith as thurificatus and
traditor^y he had surrendered Christian scriptures and burned in-
cense on a pagan altar; in Rome, as in Africa, the problem of the
treatment of the lapsi aroused bitter passions. Pope Marcellus,
elected in 307, who was a rigorist, was opposed by a party which
championed a more liberal treatment of the fallen, and the two
sections of the church met in bloody conflicts in the streets of the
capital. In defence of public order Marcellus was banished by
Maxentius. On April 8, 308 Maxentius permitted the election of
Pope Eusebius, but he, too, met with opposition and was banished
to Sicily. On July 2,311 Miltiades was consecrated as bishop, and
^ See A. Riese, Die Inschrift des Clematius und die kolnischen Martyrien,
Bonner Jahrbiicher, cxviii, 1909, p. 236. Even if, as W. Levison has con-
tended Ursula- Legendejb.cxsxu, 1927, p. 1), the Clematius
inscription is throughout genuine, it is impossible to tell in what persecution
the virgins of Cologne were martyred, while it is only a guess which has dated
the martyrdom of S. Alban to the great persecution: Gildas (Chronicon c. x),
having reached the persecution of Diocletian, writes that S. Alban died ‘supra
dicto ut conicimus persecutionis tempore.’
^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii, 14, i.
® For Marcellinus cf. J. Wilpert, Rom. ^artalschr. xxii, 1908, pp.
91 sqq.
68o
THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
now Maxentius went farther than Galerius had done in his edict
of toleration issued in the spring of the same year (see p. 671) and
restored to the Church the property which had been confiscated
during the persecution. It is important to realize that Maxentius
in banishing two bishops was but doing his duty in maintaining
order within the City. When Constantine marched upon Rome it
was not to free the Christians from religious persecution^.
Constantine as Caesar naturally continued to acknowledge
Hercules^ as his official patron, especially when, on Maximian’s
flight from Italy to Gaul, Constantine married Fausta, Maxi-
mian’s daughter, and received from his father-in-law the title of
Augustus®. But with the treachery and death of Maximian, in
A.0, 310, a Herculian title to imperial power became impossible:
some new basis must be found for Constantine’s imperium. Thus
the panegyrisf^ forthwith explains, what had not been realized
previously, that Constantine was connected with the family of the
heroic third-century Emperor Claudius Gothicus. What the precise
relationship may have been the orator discreetly does not seek to
determine: the essential point to bring home to his hearers was
that the derivation of Constantine’s title from the grant of the
discredited Maximian was nothing but an error. Already there had
been two emperors in his family: Constantine was born an emperor.
He alone of all his colleagues was one of a dynastic line.
The fiction prevailed : the dynasty of the Second Flavians was
securely founded. With the change in the title to the throne was
associated a change in the Emperor’s religious allegiance. He
now returns to the sun-worship of his Balkan ancestors, and hence-
forth Sol Invictus — Apollo — becomes his divine patron. Con-
stantine’s Herculian past is buried. This has been called Con-
stantine’s first conversion. The new imperial faith is duly celebrated
in the panegyric delivered at Trbves after the death of Maximian.
The orator gives free rein to his fancy and imagines® the appear-
ance to the Emperor of Apollo in his temple to which Constantine
has made his pilgrimage. At the side of the god stands the
goddess Victoria. In Rome when Maximian had become bis
Augustus — Augustus for the second time — the coinage had borne
the wish that his third decade of rule might be prosperous (Vota
^ On the extremely complex question of the succession of bishops at Rome
cf. E. Shwartz, GStt. Nach. 1904, pp. _530ryf, H. Lietzmann, Petrus und
Paulus in Pon^, p. 9; E. Zeits, f. Kirchengesch. xlvi, 1927, pp.
321 sqq.\ Gesch. des Papsttums, I, pp. 97 sqq.
2 Paneg. nu {v\ 4. ^ Ik ni (vi), 2.
‘ Ik VI (vii), 2. 5 Ik VI (vii), 21.
XX, I] CONSTANTINE INVADES ITALY 68i
xxx); men could desire for Constantine no less: Apollo bore
wreaths each of which carried the promise of thirty years of rule^.
No small importance has been attached to this vision by some
scholars : it has been interpreted as the model on which the later
Christian vision was fashioned. This is to do too much honour to
the panegyrist’s invention^.
With the year 3 1 1 came the edict of toleration and the death of
Galerius: Maximin seized his hour, anticipated Licinius and
occupied Asia Minor. Henceforth the Hellespont divided the
Emperors of the East. Licinius, deprived of the resources which
possession of the Asiatic provinces would have given him, turned'
to Constantine for support. Already in 3 10 he had been betrothed
to Constantine’s sister, Constantia. In the summer of 31 1
Licinius is at Serdica where by granting special privileges to
the soldiers he sought to secure their loyalty®. Maxentius in the
West deified his murdered father and re-asserted his Herculian
claim to rule. As Licinius becomes the ally of Constantine,
so Maxentius and Maximin are drawn together. The revolt in
Africa suppressed, his corn supplies secured, Maxentius can
shelter behind the walls of Aurelian from which both Severus and
Galerius had retired discomfited. In 312 Constantine, having
re-established Roman authority on the Rhine, decided to march
against the ‘tyrant’ who held the Western capital. There follows
the lightning campaign which ended at the Milvian Bridge.
From Gaul Constantine struck across the Alps : he left behind
him troops to guard the frontier of the Rhine, and, though we can
form no precise numerical estimate of the strength of the army of
invasion, it was less than 40,000 men. Maxentius, we are told, had
in Italy some 100,000 soldiers, though many of these remained
with the ‘tyrant’ in Rome; Constantine’s march over the Mont
Genbvre was unopposed, though the garrison of Susa had been
reinforced. That fortress was stormed, and the discipline in Con-
stantine’s army was such that there was no plundering of the
town. This rare moderation later bore its fruits: as Constantine
advanced through Italy he was greeted with enthusiasm in other
cities. The first important engagement was fought in the neigh-
^ Paneg. vi (vn), 21, 4. Vidtsti . . .Jpollinem tuum. . .coronas tibi laureas
offerentem quae tricenum singulae ferunt omen annorum.
^ So Bidez. W. Seston has maintained the purely literary character of this
vision, Annuaire de P Instiiut de Philologie et A Histoire Orientales et Slaves iv,
1936, pp. 373 sqq. .
® E. Paulovics, La Table de Privileges de Brigetio (=Archaeologia Hun-
garica xx), Budapest, 1936; W. Seston, Byzantion, xii, 1937, p. 477 -
682 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
bourhood of Turin— perhaps between Alpignano and Rivoli:
Constantine’s centre gave way before the mail-clad cavalry of
Maxentius, then the wings closed in upon the horsemen, and
clubmen brought down horse and rider’’-. Turin shut its gates
against the fugitives and then surrendered. A large force under
the command of Pompeianus Ruricius was concentrated at Verona.
After a short stay in Milan and an engagement at Brixia Con-
stantine under cover of night crossed the Adige and began the
siege of Verona; Ruricius broke through Constantine’s lines to
bring up reinforcements. Constantine did not hesitate: without
abandoning the siege he immediately advanced against the troops
with which Ruricius was returning. He himself led the attack;
the battle lasted far into the night. Ruricius fell; his men were
scattered. Aquileia was secured, Verona capitulated.
The march through central Italy continued; Modena after a
short siege surrendered; and the way to Rome lay open. But it
was precisely from the walls of Rome that Severus and Galerius
had retreated baffled and helpless: Constantine had prepared a
fleet with which to intercept the transport of grain to the Western
capital, but in vain, for the rebellion of Alexander had been
crushed in time, and Maxentius had drawn from the granary
of Africa copious supplies. Constantine’s great fear was that
Maxentius would not quit Rome. It was the guardians of the
Sibylline books who achieved for Constantine that which he him-
self would have been powerless to enforce. Maxentius determined
to leave to his generals the command of his forces ; his army ad-
vanced along the Via Flaminia as far as Saxa Rubra, where it
apparently came in contact with Constantine’s troops. In the
first encounter the soldiers of Maxentius were victorious. Then
‘Constantine moved all his forces nearer to the city and encamped
in the neighbourhood “regione” of the Milvian Bridge^.’ The real
difficulty of the battle, if we accept this statement of Lactantius,
is to understand how it was that, in face of the superior numbers
of Maxentius, Constantine was allowed to execute this flanking
movement unmolested. Are we to understand a previous retreat
and a wide detour? Just before dawn on October 28 ‘Constantine
was sleeping when he was bidden to mark (‘notaret’) on the
shields of his men the sublime sign of God and thus engage the
enemy. He did as he was bidden and marked on the shields the
letter X with a line drawn through it and turned round at the top,
1 For a topographical discussion of this battle cf. M. A. Levi in BoU.
storico-bihUografico subalfim sxxn, 1934, pp. i-io (with map).
® Lactantius, ^#ri. 44, 3.
XX, i] THE VISION OF THE CROSS 683
i.e. Christus^.’ Maxentius on the same day, the anniversary of his
assumption of power, ordered that the Sibylline books should be
consulted: the answer was given that on that day the enemy of the
Romans would perish. The battle was already begun when
Maxentius, assured of victory, joined his army. Constantine with
like confidence threw his cavalry against the enemy, and his in-
fantry followed. It was a bitterly contested struggle, but when the
lines of Maxentius broke they could not retreat, for the Tiber ran
close behind them. The bridge of boats by which they had crossed
gave way under the press, and Maxentius perished with the fugi-
tives.
Constantine as victor entered the Western capital. Against
the advice of the augurs, in despite of his military counsellors,
unsupported by the troops of Licinius, with incredible audacity
Constantine had risked everything on a single hazard — and won.
How shall that success be explained } Constantine himself knew
well the reason for his victory: it had been won ‘instinctu divi-
nitatis®,’ by a ‘virtus’ which was no mere human valour, but was
a mysterious force which had its origin in God. And as the ground
of that conviction tradition has repeated the story of the Vision of
the Cross athwart the afternoon sun — a vision which came to
Constantine, it seems, while he was still in Gaul before he began his
march into Italy. For that Vision of the Cross we have no con-
temporary evidence: indeed our only evidence is the assertion of
Eusebius, made after Constantine’s death in the Vita Constantini^,
that the Emperor had on his oath assured him of the fact. No
mention of that vision occurs in any of the editions of the Church
History of Eusebius : this of course proves nothing : Eusebius did
not come into close contact with Constantine until a.d. 325 which
is the probable date of the last edition of his History. It has been
^ Lactantius, de mart. pers. 44, 5- The passage of Lactantius is of extreme
difficulty; H. Gr^goire proposes to read ‘et [I] transversa X littera’ or ‘trans-
versa X littera [I],’ Byzantion 11, 1925, pp.406 n. 2,407. The question of the
form of the monogram thus described by Lactantius is matter of dispute and
cannot be fully discussed here (see N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and
the Christian Church, pp. 60 sqq.)i it may well have been that of the star with
a knob on one of the radial arms This would explain the language used by
Lactantius: the sign read as a monogram was not a XP in the ordinary form
of the second letter, and therefore could not be so described. The present
writer is not convinced that the sign in this form was regarded as an Apolli-
nine symbol (so Seston). Later the monogram | became an essential part
of the Christian standard, the Labarum.
684 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
contended^ that the whole account is an interpolation of the
Theodosian period, but that contention is at present unproven.
In the year 35 r Constantins was granted a vision of the Cross in
the heavens and it was then remarked that the son was more
blessed than the father: Constantine had but found in the earth
the true Cross: Constantins had seen it in the sky'^. Does this
denote ignorance of the story of Eusebius® or a politic denial of
Eusebius’ statement.^ Who shall say. ^ The one thing which is
critically illegitimate is to treaf the account given by Lactantius
of the dream of Constantine before the walls of Rome (see p. 682)
as though it described the same vision as that related by Eusebius.
In recent discussions the two quite distinct divine interventions
have at times been confused. But even though at present the
historical student may be forced to conclude any discussion of the
Eusebian report with a judgment of non liquet^ to the present
writer it appears that the account of the church historian is at
least a true reflection of the Emperor’s own thought — or at least
of his after-thought. Victory had been promised him by the God
of the Christians; he had challenged the Christian God to an
Ordeal by Battle and that God had kept his pledge. This belief
of Constantine remains of fundamental significance for the under-
standing of the policy of the reign.
II. CONSTANTINE AND CHRISTIANITY
Many are the scholars who have discussed Constantine’s rela-
tion to Christianity and the Christian Church, and assuredly that
discussion is not ended, for no agreement has been reached. In
this place very little can be said, but at least it can be asserted that
until the authenticity of Constantine’s letters written in connection
with the Donatist controversy has been successfully challenged,
it must be admitted that the Emperor long before his conquest
of the Roman East regarded himself as a Christian. Yet it must
never be forgotten that he was at the same time the ruler of sub-
jects who were for the most part pagan, and that therefore his acts
and even his beliefs must, at least in these earlier years, be tolerant
of a pagan interpretation. Though Constantine might be assured
^ By W. Seston, ‘L’opinion paienne et la conversion de Constantin,’
Revue d'hist. et de philos. religieuses, xvi, 1936, pp. 250—264.
® Cyril of Jerusalem, Migne, Patr. Gr. xxxiii, 1168 B-i 169 a.
® We shall be better able to estimate aright the account of Eusebius when
we can consult the promised monograph on the subject by Professor Bidez,
cf. Byzantion 10, 1935, pp 407 sqq. For the present cf. &ston, op. cit. (see
above, n. i).
XX, II] CONSTANTINE AND THE PAGANS 685
that the victory of the Milvian Bridge had been won through the
aid of the Christian God, yet pagan rhetoricians must be allowed
to express that conviction of divine aid through the medium of
their own pagan interpretation of the fact.
The real content of Constantine’s thought may well have been
very different from that of its pagan interpreters. The language
of the panegyrists indeed gives back the thought of Constantine
reflected from a refracting mirror. And for Constantine, it may be
suggested, an outworn past lives on because that past has been
transformed into a symbol which has lost its original significance.
The solar imagery of an earlier religious conviction is retained
because Constantine is a member of a dynasty, and that solar
imagery has become a part of a dynastic heraldry which proclaims
an inherited title to imperial power^. The student must therefore
be prepared to recognize a conscious ambiguity in the acts of
Constantine — an ambiguity necessarily arising from the am-
biguous position of a Christian emperor ruling a pagan empire,
and bound to a pagan past. Thus the Senate may erect a statue in
traditional form to its divinely guided sovereign and may have
placed in the hand of the statue a traditional vexillum\ as the ruler
of a pagan world Constantine may have accepted this homage of
his pagan subjects while for himself the vexillum was no mere
traditional tribute: he may have seen in it the symbol of his per-
sonal faith, the Cross; it would thus have both for him and for the
Christians its own novelty, its own peculiar character: ‘in hoc
singulari signo^’ the victory had been won, and the interpretation
given by Eusebius to the traditional imagery of the statue may
after all have rightly interpreted the ambiguity of the inscription.
It is through concessions to the past that Constantine mediated
the transition to the Christian Empire of the future — that Empire
which his sons educated in the Christian faith might one day
behold as accomplished fact.
Discussion continues concerning the vision recounted by Lac-
tan tius; but whatever conclusions criticism may reach it is at least
obvious that Lactantius is endeavouring to describe a definite
form of the Christian monogram, and that description cannot be
lightly dismissed. It must ultimately be explained, and not ex-
plained away. Certain it is that after the victory Constantine acts
just as he might have been expected to act if the story in Lac-
tantius were true. Created senior Augustus by the Senate, he
writes to his Eastern colleague Maximin bidding him stay the
1 Cf. Baynes, op. cit. pp. 95 sqq.
* Rufinus, translating Eusebius (cf. Hist Eccl. ix, 9, 10—13).
686
THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
persecution. If at this time, having abolished the acta of Maxentius,
he formally published in Italy and Africa Galerius’ Edict of Tolera-
tion, he immediately went far beyond that grudging recognition
of Christian rights: not only did he order restoration of confiscated
Church property, but instructions were given to the provincial
finance officers to give to the Catholics — but not to the Donatists
— such monies from the public funds as the Church might need.
When early in 3 1 3 Constantine met his ally Licinius at Milan a
policy of complete religious freedom was agreed upon. Technically
it may be true that there \vas no Edict of Milan, but, in the view
of the present writer, that is because Constantine had already
accorded to all his subjects those rights which were granted to the
provinces of Asia in the letter issued at Nicomedia by Licinius a
few months later, which itself summarized Constantine’s legisla-
tion promulgated by him as senior Augustus after the crowning
mercy of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The facts for which the
‘ Edict of Milan ’ once stood are still facts, though the Edict itself
has gone the way of many another symbolic representation of
historical truth. But let it not be thought that Constantine was a
passionless exponent of a philosophic doctrine of toleration. It
has been contended^ that when error prevails it is right to invoke
liberty of conscience, when on the contrary truth predominates it
is just to use coercion. Such doubtless was the view of Constan-
tine : he was, it must be repeated, the ruler of a pagan world, and
the Christian in Constantine must for the present yield to the
statesman. To the Donatist schismatic and to the Christian heretic
no such consideration need be shown. Constantine’s ideal State
would be hampered by no fetters of toleration.
Meanwhile in the Eastern provinces Maximin had unwillingly
accepted the Edict issued just before his death by Galerius. The
text of the Edict was not published by him, but he gave verbal
instructions to his Praetorian Prefect, Sabinus, to write to the
provincial governors : of that letter we possess a Greek translation :
the authorities are directed that if any Christian be found following
the religion of his nation he should be set free from molestation
and from danger and should henceforth not be deemed punishable
on this charge. The administration welcomed the permission to
stay the persecution : the Christian prisoners were released : those
relegated to the mines returned with joy, and the pagans them-
selves shared in the general rejoicing. But in Nicomedia men soon
learned that the concession had been wrung from Maximin, and
^ Cf. J. C. Bluntschli, Ge$. khine Schriftm, i, 1879, p. 106.
XX, Ii] PERSECUTION IN THE EAST 687
that the city might look for imperial favour if the citizens would
give the Emperor an excuse for a change of policy. A petition was
presented asking that the Christians might be banished from
Nicomedia. Before the year was out (October— November 31 1)
persecution had begun afresh : on November 24^ Peter Bishop of
Alexandria was martyred; about the same time Silvanus, who had
been bishop for forty years, suffered death at Emesa; on January 7,
3 12 Lucian was martyred at Nicomedia.
The example of Nicomedia was followed in Antioch where
Theotecnus, curator of the city, instigated a similar demonstra-
tion, and the pagans in other cities likewise forwarded their peti-
tions. These requests were graciously answered by Maximin in a
rescript issued c. June 312; in return for their devotion to the
gods the Emperor would forthwith grant any boon for which the
cities might ask®. Maximin now developed a constructive policy
and planned to create a pagan Church: priests of the gods were
appointed in each city and those who had distinguished themselves
in the public service were made provincial high-priests (pontifices)\
propaganda should support the pagan counter-reformation: to
discredit the Christian faith forged Acts of Pilate were circulated
throughout the Eastern provinces ; they were to be studied in the
schools and learnt by heart — ‘children in the schools had every
day on their lips the names of Jesus and Pilate®.’ At Damascus a
Roman general forced prostitutes under the threat of torture to
state that they had formerly been Christians and that they had
witnessed deeds of shame committed even in the Christian
churches. These confessions were published at the Emperor’s
command. From an inscription we learn that in Pisidia members
of the governor’s civil staff were ordered to sacrifice, and the right
to resign from the service was denied them^. Sheep and cattle
were carried off from the fields for daily sacrifice : the soldiers, fed
on sacrificial flesh, scorned their rations of bread. Attention has
been called to traces in the epigraphy of Asia Minor of encourage-
ment by the emperors of the pagan revival: this policy may be
reflected in the association of the Tekmoreian Guest-Friends, a
pagan society on the Imperial estates of Pisidian Antioch®. From
1 Cf. Class, ^art. xviii, 1924, p. 194.
® For the inscription of Arylanda see E. Preuschen, Jnalecta^, Pt i
(Tubingen, 1909), p. 100.
® Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ix, 7, i.
* On the inscription of Eugenius see the bibliography to this chapter,
A, (2).
® Sir W. M. Ramsay, Pauline and other Studies, pp. 103— 122.
688 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
an inscription the name of one of Maximin’s priests has been
recovered — Athanatos Epitynchanos; he was a priest in Phrygia
who had been initiated by the high-priestess Ispatale; she had
‘ransomed^' many from evil torments,’ probably those who
through initiation had been rescued from the torments of the
after-life, but possibly Christians saved from torture during the
persecution^.
But after Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge the plans
of Maximin for a general revival of paganism in Roman Asia were
rudely checked. He was told by Constantine that repression of
the Christians must cease. That order he dared not disobey, and
thus towards the end of a.d. 312 ® Maximin addressed another
letter to Sabinus in which he explained that it was only fitting
that he should grant the petitions of the cities, for their request
had been pleasing to the gods; but he still desired that through
persuasion his subjects should be brought fitly to reverence
the gods: the Christians should not be constrained thereto by
violence. The winter of 3 r 2—3 was indeed a disastrous time for
Maximin: the harvest had failed, and famine and pestilence
devastated the Eastern provinces. Maximin had sought to impose
pagan worship upon the newly converted Armenians, and as a
consequence war was declared. We know no details; the conflict
must have been brieH, for in the depth of winter, through rain and
snow, while Licinius was still in Italy, Maximin by forced marches
advanced from Syria to the Straits and invaded Europe. Licinius
hastily left Milan to meet the invasion. The garrison of Byzantium
capitulated after an investment of eleven days, and Heraclea and
Perinthus similarly opened their gates. Licinius with a small
force had now reached Adrianople, and, rapidly collecting as
many troops as possible from the near neighbourhood, at the post-
station of Tzirallum he faced with barely 30,000 men the 70,000
of Maximin’s army. While Maximin vowed to Juppiter that, were
victory granted him, he would extirpate the Christian name, an
angel, so Lactantius tells us®, dictated a prayer to Licinius ; victory
would be his, if he and his army would appeal to the Summus Deus.
^ Cf. Titus n, 14.
® The inscription was set up in 313—14 after the victory of Licinius over
Maximin, as H. Gregoire has shown, Byzantion viii, 1933, p. 51.
® Cf. Class, ^art. loc. at.
* Cf. O. Seeck, Gesch. des Gnter gangs dtr antiken Welt, Ed. 3. i, pp. 148,
503-
® Lactantius, de mart, pers^ 46.
XX, II] THE VICTORY OF LICINIUS 689
It is a fine litany that, three times recited, inspired with confidence
of divine succour the troops of Licinius^ :
Summe deos te rogamus
Omnem iustitiam tibi commendamus
Imperium nostrum tibi commendamus
Per te vivimus, per te victores et felices existimus:
Summe, sancte deus, preces nostras exaudi ;
Bracdiia nostra ad te tendimus:
Exaudi, sancte, summe deus.
Maximin refused to consider terms of peace : he had hoped to win
over the army of Licinius without a struggle, and then with united
forces march against Constantine. But the angePs promise was
kept: when the armies engaged, the soldiers of Maximin fled and
with them their emperor (May i, 313). His wrath fell heavily on
the pagan priests who had promised him victory and at length he
sought the support of the Christians: in Nicomedia (probably
May 313) he not only issued an edict of toleration but even re-
stored its confiscated property to the Church. But it was too late;
before the advance of Licinius he retreated beyond the Taurus
line, and in Tarsus he died, not in battle, but of a disease which
blinded him and reduced him to a skeleton (r. August 313). In
June 313 Licinius in Nicomedia published a letter granting com-
plete freedom of belief in terms which we have every reason to
think had been agreed upon with Constantine at the meeting in
Milan A translation may be attempted:
‘Since we saw that freedom of worship ought not to be denied, but that
to each man’s judgment and will the right should be given to care for
sacred things according to each man’s free choice, we have already some
time ago bidden the Christians^ to maintain the faith of their own sect
and worship. But since in that edict by which such right was granted to
the aforesaid Christians many and varied conditions (atpecret?) clearly
^ It has been pointed out by H. Gregoire that a similar prayer is attributed
to Constantine by Eusebius {Revue de rUniversite de Bruxelles xxxvi, 1931,
260), Vita Const antini iv, 20. When its language is compared with that of
the letter of Licinius later published at Nicomedia it may be suggested that
the text was agreed upon between Constantine and Licinius at their meeting
in Milan.
2 Latin text: Lactantius, de mart. pers. 485 Greek translation: Eusebius,
EccL Hist X, 5. On these texts cf. Baynes, Constantine and the Christian
Churchy pp. 69 sqq,
® roh re Xpt<rrtai‘Oi<g, It would appear that some words have dropped
out here.
690 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
appeared to have been added, it may well perchance have come about that
after a short time many were repelled from practising their religion, Thus^
when I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, had met at
Mediolanum (Milan) and were discu^ing all those matters which relate
to the advantage and security of the State, amongst the other things which
we saw would benefit the majority of men we were convinced that first
of ail those conditions by which reverence for the Divinity is secured should
be put in order by us to the end that we might give to the Christians and to
all men the right to follow freely whatever religion each had wished, so that
thereby whatever of Divinity there be^ in the heavenly seat may be favour-
able and propitious to us and to all those who are placed under our authority.
And so by a salutary and most fitting line of reasoning we came to the con-
clusion that we should adopt this policy — namely our view should be that
to no one whatsoever should we deny liberty to follow either the religion
of the Christians or any other cult which of his own free choice he has
thought to be best adapted for himself, in order that the supreme Divinity*'^,
to whose service we render our free obedience, may bestow upon us in all
things his wonted favour and benevolence. Wherefore we would that your
Devotion should know that it is our will that ail those conditions should
be altogether removed which were contained in our former letters addressed
to you concerning the Christians [and which seemed to be entirely perverse
and alien from our clemency^] — these should be removed and now in free-
dom and without restriction let all those who desire to follow the aforesaid
religion of the Christians hasten to follow the s;ime without any molesta-
tion or interference. We have felt that the fullest information should be
furnished on this matter to your Carefulness that you might be assured that
we have given to the aforesaid Christians complete and unrestricted liberty
to follow their religion. Further, when you see that this indulgence has
been granted by us to the aforesaid Christians, your Devotion will under-
stand that to others also a similar free and unhindered liberty of religion
and cult has been granted, for such a grant is befitting to the peace of our
times, so that it may be open to every man to worship as he will This has
been done by us so that we should not seem to have done dishonour to any
religion
The Emperors then proceed to order the return to the Chris-
tians of all confiscated churches'^ whether held by the imperial
Treasury^ or by private persons; such restoration is to be made
'sine pecunia et sine ulla pretii petitione/ Similarly all other
properties formerly 'ad ius cor|>oris eorum^ id est ecclesiarnm
non hominum singnloriim pertinentia* are to be given back
'corpori et conventiculis eorum.* The Treasury will undertake to
1 At this point the Latin, text of Lactantius begins.
^ (mkquid iesty divinitath in sede caeksti,
^ Summa Divinitas.
^ These words are only in, the Greek text.
® The text in Lactantius^is doubtful.
^ loca ad quae antea convenire consuerant.
XX, III] CONSTANTINE AND LICINIUS 691
indemnify those who are thus deprived of land which they may
have purchased. The aim of the imperial legislators is then re-
affirmed: it is that ‘the divine favour which we have experienced
in a crisis of our fortunes may for all time prosper our undertak-
ings and serve the public weal^.’
III. CONSTANTINE AND LICINIUS
The Roman world was divided between the two victors. But,
Italy won, Constantine showed no desire to transfer his court to
Rome: he had for many years governed Gaul, and it seemed
probable that Arles would become the capital of the Roman West.
It was to Arles that the Christian bishops were summoned early
in A.D. 314 (see below, p. 693). Italy might be ruled by another.
Accordingly, Constantine suggested to Licinius that Bassianus,
who had married Constantine’s sister Anastasia, should be
created Caesar. The brother of Bassianus, Senicio, was a partisan
of Licinius, and it was agreed with the latter that Bassianus should
attack Constantine. But the treacherous scheme was discovered.
Already at Emona the statues of Constantine had been over-
thrown, and when Licinius refused to surrender Senicio, his
complicity was declared^. Constantine on his coinage re-asserted
his Claudian descent and dynastic claim, collected his forces in the
north of Italy and at the head of 20,000 men advanced by way of
Aquileia and Noviodunum to Siscia® (autumn 314). Near
Cibalae (Vinkovce)^ in Pannonia he was met by the army of
Licinius 35,000 strong. That army was encamped in a wide plain;
Constantine’s march led through a defile, a hill on one side, a deep
swamp on the other. But, undeterred, he forthwith attacked with
his cavalry and thus won freedom for the advance of his infantry®.
The battle was fiercely contested until nightfall, when the army of
Licinius, deserting its baggage train, fled and did not halt until it
1 Cf. L. Schnorrvon C^.rohk\ 6 L.,Gesch. derjuristisc}ienPerson,i, Munich,
1933, pp. 165 sqq.
2 Our only account is that of Anon. Vales. 14 sqqr, Zosimus attributes to
Constantine the responsibility for the breach, ii, 1 8 ink.
® J. Maurice, Numismatique constantinieme, i, p. xcvi.
^ V. Nikolid has pointed out that the topographical description in Zosimus
n, 18 fits not Cibalae, but Vukovar which lies some miles east of Vinkovce.
The palus Hiulca nomine mentioned by [Aurelius Victor], Epk. xli, 5 can be
identified with the stream of the Vuika or Vuka which still flows through
swamps. See Seeck, op. cit. Ed. 3 > P- S^S-
® The details of the account of the battle in Zosimus n, 18 a^ear obscure
;td;the:'presentvya^itef5::j:;:;;;-;'-;^
692 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
reached Sirmium. Here the bridge over the Save was destroyed,
and Licinius, having lost, it is said, 20,000 men in the battle at
Cibake, made for Thrace where he collected reinforcements. At
Adrianople the frontier Valens was created Augustus^, and
then envoys were sent to Constantine, who was by this time in
Philippopolis^, to treat for peace. Constantine rejected the pro-
posals, and at Campus Mardiensis^, which probably lay somewhere
between Philippopolis and Adrianople, a second battle was fought
with great determination on both sides, but with indecisive result.
After the battle Constantine lost touch with Licinius: thinking
that the latter would make for Byzantium, he marched with all
speed for that city only to find that Licinius was at Beroea and
that his own lines of communication were thus broken, and re-
inforcements from the West could be intercepted. But by Con-
stantine’s march Licinius w'as similarly cut off from contact with
his base in Asia, and thus it was Licinius who once more sought to
negotiate a peace: he sent the comes Mestrianus^ to Constantine
and after diplomatic delays a new partition of the Roman world
was agreed upon: Constantine gained the provinces of Pannonia,
Iliyricum, Macedonia, Greece and Moesia, while in Europe
Licinius retained only Thrace. Licinius sacrificed his newly
created Augustus Valens, and an attempt to secure the recogni-
tion of his own son as Caesar was defeated by Constantine®.
When in the early spring of 3 1 3 Licinius had returned to the
East to meet the invasion of Maximin, Constantine had been
recalled from Milan to Gaul to repel Germans and Franks on the
Rhine; at the end of the campaign Ludi Francici (15—20 July)
celebrated his success. Henceforth the peace of Gaul was un-
disturbed: it was the religious divisions in Africa which claimed
the Emperor’s attention. The Donatists challenged Constantine’s
decision to exclude them from participation in the imperial bene-
factions : they prayed him to appoint bishops from Gaul to deter-
mine the issue between themselves and the Catholics : it was a step
which was to have far-reaching consequences. It is unnecessary
in this place to relate in detail the events which followed that
appeal, but significant stages must be briefly noticed®. Constantine
^ Maurice, op. at. p. xcvi.
® Conjectured by Tiliemont for the ‘Philippi’ of Anon. Vales. 17, cf.
Leo Grammaticus (Bonn edn.), p. 85.
® Seeck, op. cit. i®, p, 507, conjectures Campus larbiensis.
* Petrus Fatricius, frag. 15 {F.H.G. iv, p. 189).
® Maurice, op. at. p. xcvii.
® For the details see Baynes, op. cit. pp. 1 1— 16.
XX, III] CONSTANTINE AND THE DONATISTS 693
on receipt of the petition referred the matter to Pope Miltiades
and three Gallic bishops. Miltiades transformed this small com-
mittee into a Council in accordance with the traditional practice
of the Church. From the adverse decision of this Roman synod
the Donatists appealed: Constantine agreed to summon a more
representative assembly. To Arles in 314 came bishops from all
those parts of the empire ruled by Constantine : the Church raised
no objection to this revision of the Roman judgment, which they
independently confirmed. At the same time they took the op-
portunity to revise the canons issued a few years before by a
Council held at Elvira : they expressly recognized that Christians
could hold civil office without prejudice to their position in the
Church^; in respect of service in the army, however, canon 3 is
less explicit and has provoked discussion: ‘Qui in pace arma
proiiciunt excommunicentur’: the words ‘in pace’ have been
taken to mean ‘now that persecution has ceased.’ The present
writer believes that the words should be given their natural sense:
the Council condemns such conduct as that of Maximilian and
Marcellus (seep. 663); it will not derogate from the rule that for a
Christian the shedding of blood has once for all been condemned.
But with the adverse decision of the Council of Arles the Donatists
were not content: they appealed for Constantine’s own judgment
on their case: for a long time he hesitated, but at last in November
316 he yielded, and himself determined the issue: by an imperial
constitution the Donatist churches were confiscated, the military
repression of Donatism began, and the Donatist calendar of
martyrs was formed. It was this experience which determined the
action of Constantine when the Council of Nicaea had met in 325 :
there must be no Donatist schism in the Eastern provinces.
Constantine’s plan for devolving upon another the government
of Italy had failed. He spent the first half of the year 315 in the
provinces which he had acquired from Licinius, and the second
in Rome and Milan. In 316 he was in the Gaul which he knew
so well. From Trfeves by way of Vienne he went to Arles. And
then there comes the change: Gaul which he had pacified held him
no longer: he turned to his eastern provinces; at Serdica on
March 1,317^ new Caesars were created — Constantine’s two sons
Crispus and Constantine and the younger Licinius, a bastard born
1 Canon 7 only cum coeperint contra disciplinam agere, turn demum a com-
muntone excludaniur — presumably this means ‘when they have taken part in
pagan ceremonies.’
2 On the appearance in this year of the Christian standard borne by Con-
stantine’s bodyguard, the Labarum, see Baynes op, cit. p. 63.
694 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
of a slave. It is at Sirmium in the same year that Constantine’s
third son Constantins was born. Apart from a visit to Italy in the
summer of 318 Constantine did not return to the West: from his
constitutions he can be followed as he moves from Serdica to Sir-
mium and back again to Serdica; it must have been at this time
that he thought of making Serdica his capital: ‘My Rome is
Serdica,’ he said^. It was from these provinces that he was to march
to the second and conclusive struggle with his colleague Licinius.
In the legislation of the years which preceded that civil war
the influence of Christianity can be traced. Thus, for example, in
318 it is provided that even where the hearing of a case has begun
before a civil judge, the matter shall at the wish of the parties be
transferred to the bishop’s court and the latter’s decision shall be
final®. In 321 it is enacted that manumissions, if granted in a
church in presence of the clergy, shall be valid without the further
formalities required by Roman law®. Despite the doubts of some
scholars the constitutions dealing with the observance of the
Venerabilis dies solis, though cast in a pagan form, were probably
inspired by reverence for the Christian Sunday^. In the Eastern
provinces Licinius, after the publication of his letter of 3 1 3, so far
as we know, showed no further favour towards the Christians, and
gradually drifted back into a policy of repression. This change
seems to have been the result of the growing alienation between
Constantine and his colleague. In 319 Constantine as senior
Augustus announced himself and his son Constantine as consuls
for 320; for 321 he nominated his sons Crispus and Constantine*,
the Caesar Licinius was passed over. That nomination was not
recognized by Licinius. Hostility was thus openly declared.
It is from this time (320-321), it would seem, that the
vexatious measures of Licinius against the Christians are first
enforced. No Church Councils might in future be held, Chris-
tians must not meet in churches, but only in the open air outside
the cities, and at their services men and women should not share
in a common worship. Once more the imperial court was cleared
of Christians, while civil servants lost their appointments if they
refused to sacrifice®. Many governors went much further, and
^ Anon. Dionis Continuator, frag. 15 (F.H.G. iv, p. 199).
® Cod. Theod. i, 27, i.
® lb. IV, 7, I. Cf. Cod. Just. I, 13, I.
* Cod.^ Theod. n, 8, i. Cod. Just, ni, 12, 2 . Cf. A. Piganiol, Uemperettr
Constantin, pp. 128-9, who refers to C.l.L. m, 4121.
6 The evidence does not seem adequate to support the conclusion that
there was a general persecution in the army.
XX, III] THE DEFEAT OF LICINIUS 695
some bishops were martyred — though we know no details. Thus
at Amasia exceptional brutality was shown, and the account of the
deaths of the Forty Martyrs of Sebastia may be rightly dated to
the persecution of Licinius. It has been contended that the re-
pressive policy of Licinius was intended to secure the support
against Constantine of the pagans of the West: but Constantine’s
pagan subjects had no cause for complaint, and the Roman West
had not shown any enthusiasm for repressive measures. There
seems little reason to abandon the explanation of Eusebius :
Licinius regarded the Christians of the Eastern provinces as
partisans of Constantine and in consequence sought to weaken
the Christian Church.
In the years after 320 it became increasingly clear that a civil
war was imminent, and both rulers prepared for the struggle.
Each realized that sea-power would be of importance for the
control of the waterway between Europe and Asia, and for this
reason built up large fleets. Constantine constructed a new harbour
at Salonica. In 323 Constantine, while repelling a Gothic invasion,
trespassed on the territory of Licinius, and thus gave the latter a
ground for complaint. It now appears certain that the outbreak
of war is to be dated not to a.d. 323, but to a.d. 324^. At
Adrianople, situated at the confluence of the Maritza and the
Tunja, Licinius in a fortified camp awaited Constantine’s attack®.
Advancing from Salonica the latter, after some days of incon-
siderable skirmishes, distracted the attention of Licinius, crossed
the river, and then under the cover of an attack by 5000 archers
was joined by his army on the further bank. On July 3 there was
a hotly fought general engagement. Licinius, leaving, we are told,
34,000 men dead on the field of battle, fled to Byzantium, where
he was besieged by Constantine. Crispus, Constantine’s seven-
teen-year-old son, now sailed from Salonica in nominal command
of his father’s fleet. The admiral of Licinius, Abantus, was posted
at the mouth of the Dardanelles on the Asiatic side of the Straits.
In the first day’s engagement, owing to the narrowness of the
channel, Crispus brought only eighty of his ships into action, and
the result of the encounter was indecisive. Crispus withdrew to
the shelter of Cape Helles. The following morning Constantine’s
whole fleet was engaged; the elements fought against Licinius;
the northerly wind which had carried both fleets out to sea died
down : and then a gale from the south spread panic amongst the
^ E. Stein in Zeits.fur d. neuiest. Wissenschaft, xxx, 1931, PP- t 77 “^ 5 *
® The best study of the campaign is by E. Pears, Eng. Hist. Rev. xxiv.
696 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
crews of Licinius’ ships: the galleys were dashed upon the rocks
and islets south of the entrance to the Dardanelles. One hundred
and thirty ships were lost. Crispus could sail to Byzantium un-
molested. Before his arrival Licinius had crossed to the Asiatic
shore. Constantine then collected as many light transports as he
could find, and without raising the suspicions of Licinius by
moving his fleet from Byzantium, he effected a landing on the
Asiatic coast at a point ‘near the mouth of the Pontus,’ perhaps
in the neighbourhood of the village of Riva. Hence he pressed
on to Scutari (Chrysopolis) where Licinius had fixed his camp.
Here on September 18, 324 the battle was fought which sealed
the fate of Licinius. His wife Constantia appealed to the generosity
of her brother: Constantine spared his rival and banished him to
Salonica. The era of persecution was closed.
IV. CONSTANTINE AND THE CHURCH
This struggle betw^een Licinius and Constantine is represented
as a religious war, a trial of strength between the gods of paganism
and the Christian God, and there is no reason to doubt the sub-
stantial truth of that interpretation. But it is also true that Con-
stantine was now set upon realizing that vision of world-wide
empire which long before had formed the theme of Gallic pane-
gyrists. He claimed to be a descendant of Claudius Gothicus—
once the sole ruler of the Roman world — and the title to that
single imperium was his by right of birth. He had waited long,
but the restoration of unity was the mission entrusted to him by
the God of the Christians and that God had sustained him in all
his ways. Lactantius had been right: the end of the persecutors
had proven their sin. Diocletian’s death had passed almost un-
noticed, probably in a.d. 316; he had refused to be brought back
to the tasks of government. The building of his palace at Salonae
had filled his idle days, and after his abdication the only intimate
view of him that has been preserved is his exasperation when the
consciences of Christian stone-masons in Pannonia forbade them
to fashion for that palace a statue of Aesculapius^. Galerius and
Maximin had both died of loathsome diseases, and Licinius owed
his life only to the victor’s clemency. The Christian standard, the
Labarum, had triumphed, and a Christian capital of the Roman
world should form a majestic war memorial.
In November 324 the transformation of Byzantium into the
City of Constantine was begun. It has been objected that it is an
^ Passio SS. ^attuor Carenatortm. AA. SS. November, vol. m, pp.
748-84.
XX, IV] THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA 697
error to speak of Constantine’s foundation as a Christian city: it
is true that the pagan temples were not destroyed, that just as
Rome had her Tyche — her Fortune— so naturally must the
Eastern capital have her Tyche, her presiding spirit: this is
traditional form ; true also that pagan statues were collected from
every side and housed in Constantinople as an adornment for the
city, but when all this — and more — is admitted, the fact remains
that the essential act in pagan worship was sacrifice, and pagan
sacrifice, it is acknowledged, was banished from Constantine’s
city. That is the crucial fact, and because of that fact Constan-
tinople stood as a Christian Rome^. From the first its destiny was
determined. Some have sought to minimize the significance of
Constantinople in the later history of the Empire : in the writer’s
view, that significance can hardly be overestimated. While Con-
stantinople stood impregnable, the Empire stood, and it might
without paradox be claimed that the foundation of the city which
through the centuries bore his name was Constantine’s most
signal achievement.
But though imperial unity had been restored, there remained
a further task for ‘ the man of God ’ : he must restore unity within
the Christian Church. The Council of Nicaea is in its own sphere
the necessary complement to the victory at Chrysopolis. In the
West the repression of the Donatists had proved a failure: on
May y, 321 a letter from Constantine granted to the schismatics
a scornful tolerance. At a time when Licinius was beginning to
persecute the Christians, Constantine would make no more
martyrs. He left to God the punishment of the schismatics. Con-
stantine had hoped to find in the provinces of the Roman East
that religious unity which had been broken in the West: in place
of unity he was faced with discord, with the Melitian schism —
the Eastern parallel to Donatism- — and the Arian heresy. To apply
the remedy for such disunion was an urgent duty which admitted
of no delay. At Nicaea Constantine’s influence secured the adop-
tion of a creed which should form the basis for the reconciliation
of the conflicting parties. The Emperor asked only that the
bishops should accept the creed; he declined to allow any official
interpretation of its meaning: it was to be an eirenicon and not a
source of further disagreements. To the creed of Nicaea Con-
stantine remained loyal until his death, and at his death his policy
had been so far successful that there was only one recalcitrant
1 Whether Constantine gave the name of ‘New Rome’ to his city is dis- •
puted. Cf. F. Dolger, Zeits.f. Kirchengesch, nvi, 3. Folge, vi, 1937, PP- ^
That it was conceived by him as a Second Rome there is no doubt.
698 THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE [chap.
exile, Athanasius, and for him the see of Alexandria remained
vacant. Athanasius had but to kiss the rod and the Emperor’s
triumph was complete. ,
In any attempt to recover and interpret the thought of Con-
stantine it must never be forgotten that he is a Roman Emperor
and a statesman. The emperor’s ecclesiastical policy is a part of his
imperial statesmanship, for that statesmanship was based upon the
conviction of a mission in the service of the Christian God. Thus
Christian theology may become a danger if it threatens to create
disunion amongst the faithful. The dispute between Arius and
his bishop is for Constantine an idle enquiry on points of the
smallest consequence. Other Christian rulers have shared his
outlook. We are reminded of the contempt of Elizabeth of Eng-
land for the disputes of the German Protestants concerning the
omnipresence of the body of Christ: to the Queen these were
‘unprofitable discussions.’ To Constantine, as to James I, unity
was ‘the mother of order’ and it was thus but natural that James
should hold that it was the duty of Christian Kings to govern
their church ‘by reforming of corruptions. . .by judging and
cutting off all frivolous questions and schisms, as Constantine
did^.’ Constantine’s refusal to enquire curiously how bishops
might interpret the creed of Nicaea provided only that they ac-
cepted it recalls Elizabeth’s denial that she sought ‘to make a
window into men’s souls,’ and to a Tudor sovereign as to the
Roman Emperor national prosperity was the seal which God had
set upon the ruler’s work: ‘it is clear as daylight that God’s bless-
ing rests upon us, upon our people and realm with all the plainest
signs of prosperity, peace, obedience, riches, power and increase
of our subjects.’ The words do but echo Constantine’s thought.
It is through comparison with other rulers who were faced with
similar problems of ecclesiastical statesmanship that we may gain
a fuller insight into the policy of the first Christian Emperor.
With the later years of the reign of Constantine this chapter
has no concern : it is intended merely to form the bridge which leads
to another history — the story of Etirope’s Middle Age. Eusebius
had celebrated the issue of the first Edict of Toleration by pub-
lishing his History of the Church ; after Constantine’s victory over
every rival the bishop of Caesarea formulated for the first time
the theory of Christian sovereignty which was to remain the un-
questioned foundation for the political thought of the East
Roman world. But in that formulation there is no complete
1 ‘An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance,’ p. 108, in Harvard Political
Classics, I, 1918.
XX, IV] THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGE 699
breach with the past; many threads are gathered up and woven
into the new pattern. The Iranian conception of kingly power
as a trust from God had, since Aurelian’s day, once more taken
the place of an identification of the ruler with deity. And this
view of the Emperor as deriving his authority from God had
close parallels in Jewish and Christian thought: ‘thou couldest
have no power at all against me except it were given thee from
above.’ And when once the God-kingship had been abandoned,
the rest of the Hellenistic theory of sovereignty could be adopted
with hardly any change of language. The emperor’s aim, for
the Christian as for the pagan, is the imitation of God, just as
the earthly State should be a copy of the heavenly order. Pre-
cisely as the Greek king has for guiding principle the divine
Logos, so for the Christian emperor there is a divine Logos, the
Word of God, to lead and counsel him. Thus the theory of
Christian sovereignty as Eusebius set it forth is itself a symbol
of the way in which the past of the ancient world was carried
over into the Christian Empire. But though the transition is
thus mediated there is none the less at this time a break and a
turning-point in Roman history; the first Christian emperor
was, indeed, as Ammianus described him, a ‘turbator rerum,’ a
revolutionary. Constantine sitting amongst the Christian bishops
at the oecumenical council of Nicaea is in his own person the
beginning of Europe’s Middle Age.
EPILOGUE
The third century of our era witnessed what must have seemed
for a time to be the break-up of that strong system which for
generations had held together the civilized world, a system in
which the internationalism of the ancient world had culminated.
What the Roman Empire made fact had, it is true, been preceded
by partial approximations, and its debt to these is not to be
underrated, hard though it often is to define it with certainty. The
effect of the past is deeper and more extensive than is accounted
for by tradition and memory, by institutions and conscious
culture. Particularly among the ancient peoples of the Near East,
who had largely come to be subjects of the Roman Empire, there
were deep-seated instincts that reflected their life centuries before
Rome was even a name to them. These peoples had seen the rise
and fall of empires, the dignity of Egypt, the force of the As-
syrians, the sophistication of Babylonia, and, as the archives of the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries show, the world of the Near
East had known an age of precocious internationalism from the
Aegean to Babylonia. The Iranian Empire of Persia had proved
that a people, small in numbers but heirs of that internationalism,
could dominate, if not wholly govern, a great range of countries,
the power of the Great King radiating along roads which fore-
shadowed the achievements of the Romans. The politic wisdom of
toleration, and that not in religion only, was known to the
Persians, and some of their statecraft was taken over by their
final conquerors and became part of the general heritage of
imperial ideas.
Apart from experiments in the art of imperial government, the
earliest period of known ancient history saw adventures in culture.
Two thousand years before Rome became a city, ordered life in
Crete had sheltered an art which was later matched by Greece of
the Mycenaean age. And at the time when the labyrinthine palace
of Cnossus was rising in secure splendour, a king in Babylon,
Hammurabi, was elaborating a code in which men were subtly
enmeshed in niceties of law, niceties which never entirely lost
their hold. Masterful Pharaohs built their tombs to commemorate
the past and to challenge the future. Whatever might be the
disasters that broke upon the empires of the Tigris and the Nile,
the idea may well have penetrated the minds of men that external
EPILOGUE
701
grandeur and culture linked with power were to be defended as a
possession or acquired as a prize. The ancient world was adept in
taking its captors captive. Civilizations might appear to die, but
civilization seemed to have in itself the seeds of immortality. In
general, culture was bound up with authority. As time went on,
art in Persia, for example, was the handmaid of an imperial
sovereignty, the formal expression of a political fact.
In the meantime, in a small land that was of slight political
importance, there was developed a new form of religion, authori-
tarian in its monotheism, which in Judaism by slow degrees raised
up new values that outlived mundane vicissitudes, and ended by
exalting the figure of the martyr rather than of the conqueror.
Overlaid though it was by the racial and the legalistic, Jewish
religion was destined to burn through to be a light from the East,
so that from Judaism there was to proceed a religious movement
which, in part by continuity and in part by conflict, was to become
a power able to mould the Roman Empire itself. Nor was this the
only contribution which the Eastern world was to make. Mith-
raism had its roots in ancient Persian belief, the religiosity of
Egypt was long lived, the wisdom of the Babylonians continued
to appeal to those who sought to rationalize, or at least dignify,
fatalism.
But in ail this something was still lacking, the claim of an
unfettered intellectualism and of political ideas whereby nothing
passed unchallenged. There grew up in Greek lands the city-
state, in which culture belonged to the citizens, in which the
citizen was the measure of all things human and almost all things
divine. First in Ionia and then in Greece physical and ethical
speculation, freed from the mythological elements of the past, led
on to systems of philosophy which were to affect profoundly the
culture of the ancient world. Despite comparatively transient
autocracies, the Greek States were tenaciously republican, and
when they had to accept the hegemony of a king, they retained
institutions which continued to be theirs for centuries after they
had become parts of the Roman Empire. Under Alexander the
Great and his successors the Greek city-state spread over the
Eastern world, and though the Greeks were too few to recreate
the East in their own image, their culture and ways of thinking
set standards to which a great Western power might appeal.
This power presently arose. On the banks of the Tiber another
city grew to strength at the cost or for the advantage of its
neighbours. The Italian peninsula, under Roman control, became
the political centre of the Mediterranean world. Never . wholly
702 EPILOGUE
untouched by things Greek, Roman civilization acquired a
Hellenic element which fitted the Republic to compound its
instinctive statecraft with the more intellectualized practice of the
Hellenistic monarchies which it supplanted. Destructive as
Rome’s power was to much that was finest in Greek life, relentless
as was her advance to domination, yet she preserved Hellenic ideas
and added to them her own. Policy and the chances of war
brought the Western Mediterranean lands within the range of
Roman control, and to the peoples of those lands Rome could
bring a civilization that was Graeco-Roman and not Roman alone.
All Italy became Roman, and the Italo-Roman people was able
to set on the West a stamp still visible to-day.
In the Near East Rome had put an end to the wars of the rival
Greek monarchies. The dream of the restoration of the single
empire of Alexander the Great had now become accomplished
fact. That which the Greeks had failed to effect had been achieved
by Rome. And when the Hellenistic kingdoms had been over-
thrown, the conqueror was content to leave the Greek East to live
its own life and think its own thoughts within a world secured by
the ‘immense majesty of the Roman peace.’ The early Principate
did not rudely impose upon all provinces alike a single adminis-
trative system ; methods remained flexible, there was room for
local adaptation and for the survival of cherished institutions. That
is Rome’s imperial secret: she was not in a hurr}^ In Western
Europe she could trust to the attraction exercised by the civiliza-
tion which was her gift. There was thus within the Empire
diversity, but diversity in unity. From the first the subjects of
Rome acquired the habit of looking to the princefs as to a human
Providence: ‘through him they lived, through him they sailed
the seas, through him they enjoyed their liberty and their for-
tunes.’ Under the protection of this Providence the countries of
the Mediterranean world were bound together through peaceful
commerce and intercourse, and through likeness, if not uniformity,
of culture.
The early Empire was not always successful: it could not
appease Jewish nationalism, it did nothing permanent to alleviate
the lot of the Egyptian peasant. Apart, too, from any resistance
it met, Graeco-Roman culture was not as vigorous and as secure
as it seemed to be. Its ideals were too static, and the world did not
stand still. Rome had contributed few vital and original ideas to
form the content of the peace which she had established. The
Greek world of thought was living on an inherited capital, and a
rhetorical education made words of greater importance than the
EPILOGUE 703
thoughts which they expressed. Imperial intervention in municipal
affairs, however well-intentioned, tended to paralyse the generosity
and patriotism of the city’s benefactors, while the peasants, ex-
ploited by the city-dwellers, were also the victims of the greed
and violence of an undisciplined soldiery. The opening decades of
the third century saw in Persia the overthrow of Parthian rule
and the establishment of the Sassanid dynasty supported by a
newly awakened national sentiment. Antioch lay too near to
enemy territory ; Persian raiders crossed the Euphrates and sacked
the capital of the Roman East. Throughout the length of the
Empire’s northern frontier — from the Rhine to the Black Sea —
the barbarian world was on the move. Germanic tribes which
lived by war saw before them an empire to plunder. An Empire
organized on a peace footing, as Augustus had conceived it, could
not stand the strain. The defensive system fixed by Hadrian and
his successors was broken down. Small wonder that when the
central government failed them provincial armies should seek to
defend the land from which they had been recruited — that
Postumus should found an empire of the Gauls, that Rome’s ally
the prince of Palmyra should seize the opportunity of the Empire’s
weakness to establish an independent kingdom, that on every
hand generals made a bid for the purple and still further dis-
organized the Roman defence. It looked as though the unification
of the Mediterranean world was at an end.
The third century is thus a period of crisis, of experiment and
of transition. The military crisis brought economic chaos in its
train. Every new emperor was forced to purchase the loyalty of
his army; the world had, indeed, learned the art of spending, but
not of saving. Any great emergency found little in the imperial
treasury but hope, and the coming of the Golden Age of pros-
perity, so often proclaimed, was as often delayed, for the needs of
the State had grown greatly and the power to meet them by
ordinary taxation had declined. In both the military and economic
spheres emperors tried expedient after expedient: in the army
they resorted to special formations of picked troops, or to the
introduction of new weapons or of defensive armour borrowed from
their enemies: to meet growing expenditure they raised extra-
ordinary contributions in kind from the provinces through which
the armies marched, and debasement of the coinage was con-
tinuously carried to greater lengths. All, it seemed, to little effect.
Yet the threatened dissolution of the world which Rome had
unified was in fact averted; and the restoration of the closing
decades of the third century was essentially the work of (the
EPILOGUE
704
Balkan soldiery and of the Illyrian emperors. Here in the Balkan
peninsula pagan Rome had found her last great mission field and
her converts were enthusiastic in defence of the Roman tradition
as they conceived it. The history of the third century is for us a
thing of shreds and patches; we can best understand it through
studying the solutions which the emperors of the restoration
brought to the problems that were its legacy. One of the most
pressing of those problems was the safeguarding of the emperor’s
authority, for though there had been an increase in autocratic
power there had also been an increase in the emperor’s dependence
upon his troops : by their will he was made and as readily unmade.
During the three centuries since Romanism had triumphed
with the victory of Augustas at Actium the West of Europe had
been romanized, but in the third century the pendulum was
swinging back once more towards the East. In economics, in
warfare, in religion and in literature the centre of gravity had
shifted from Italy and the West. Diocletian fixing his capital at
Nicomedia was in a Greek land, and for the folk of the Near East
the absolutism of the successors of Alexander the Great had
become second nature. Here the citizen Principate of Augustus
had never been understood : from the first the emperor had been
king, and consequently Lord and God. In the third century this
conception had gained ground; the imperial house had become
the divina : the emperor enjoyed the favour of the God who
was his companion on the throne. Yet that favour was readily
transferable and conferred no fixity of tenure : it might be a sail,
but it was not an anchor. The Unconquered Sun had been unable
to save Aurelian from assassination. Diocletian, by admitting and
regularizing at his court a ceremonial which was appropriate to
Greek conceptions of the imperial authority, was seeking to free
the emperor from subjection to the passions of his soldiery. Here
is the beginning of that ‘imperial liturgy,’ the strange mixture of
civil and religious rites which was preserved with scrupulous
care at the court of the Byzantine Caesars.
This instance is typical of Diocletian’s work of restoration: it
was based throughout upon previous experiment or contemporary
practice. In finance the former extraordinary contributions in
kind now formed the permanent basis of the Empire’s system of
taxation; the third century had already seen emperors ruling as
colleagues, one in the East, the other in the West: of this the
Tetrarchy of two Augusti and two Caesars is but an extension.
By putting the undivided imperial office into commission Diocle-
tian sought, as it were, to outnumber any usurper. Emperors had
EPILOGUE 705
attempted to make good in some measure the lack of a mobile
expeditionary force; in the comitatenses the Diocletio-Constan-
tinian restoration created such an army. Diocletian’s use of the
equites as provincial governors, his separation of civil and military
careers did but generalize previous usage. The Emperor’s inno-
vations are essentially a consistent adoption and elaboration of the
tentative expedients through which his predecessors had sought
escape from the crisis of the third century. Here and there the
issue falsified his hopes— the Tetrarchy, for instance, broke down
before rival ambitions— but, for good or evil, he set the Empire
on its feet. It was given a new lease of life, though the Empire’s
subjects paid a high price for its survival.
But it is as a period of transition that the third century will
always claim the interest of the student. The ancient magistracies,
the constitutional executive which the Principate had inherited
from the Republic, no longer play any part in the Empire’s
government, though they still carry with them high social dis-
tinction; the Senate as a body has similarly ceased to control
policy of State. The emperor and the emperor’s service alone
remain. Thus Diocletian’s restoration is itself part of the transition
from the ancient world to the Middle Ages, for it is on the ruins
of the Roman State as Diocletian planned it that the Teutonic
kingdoms were built: its laws were taken up into their codes and
so far as the invaders could they copied its administrative system.
Neoplatonism is part also of that transition, for Neoplatonism, a
philosophy which was also a religion, reinforced the faith of pagan
thinkers, and it was Neoplatonism and not Mithraism which in-
spired the pagan leaders in their last attacks upon the ‘Galileans,’
while for many it may have proved to be, as it was for Augustine,
but a stage on the road which led to Christianity.
In this period Italy steadily declines in importance: in literature
the Italian peninsula is strangely unproductive. Gaul boasts her
schools whence come the Latin panegyrists, while Africa leads
the Latin West. It is once more a sign of the transition that
literature, whether in Africa or the Near East, is, in large measure,
the work of Christian writers. Men were being prepared for the
culture of the Christian Empire: even the long lines of single
uniform figures on the Arch of Constantine point forward to the
art of Ravenna.
The universalism of the Empire — the desire for imperial unity
— had sought expression through a religious cult, but neither Sol
Invictus of Aurelian’s worship nor Juppiter Optimus Maximus of
Diocletian’s allegiance could secure lasting unity. There was one
EPILOGUE
706
element, indeed, that actively opposed any such pagan univer-
salism. The Christian Church was now a community as wide as
the Empire itself; its church order had given it the fixity of a
State, and it had survived the persecution under Decius and
Valerian with principles unprejudiced or modified only by a timely
concession that enabled it to reassemble its forces for another trial
of strength. Pagan and Christian were learning to live together:
the issue now lay between the State and the Church rather than
between Christian and pagan. If it is true that the Great Persecu-
tion under Diocletian was forced upon the Emperor by Galerius,
it would then appear rather an episode than the expression of an
irreconcilable antithesis.
It is worthy of note that in the last great attack upon the
Church the initiative has in general passed wholly into the hands
of the State. It is only in exceptional cases that popular hostility
is actively engaged. This fact serves to explain the unforced
association of pagan and Christian in the fourth century: the
martyrs and confessors after the middle of the third century had
suffered primarily from the intransigence of the Roman State, and
not from the animosity of their pagan fellow-citizens. But beyond
this striking conciliation in social life there is a further third-
century movement which bore its full fruit only in the later years of
the fourth century — the conciliation between the Christian Church
and the culture of the ancient world. The tradition initiated in the
school of Alexandria by Clement and Origen did not die with
them; even in prison during the persecution Pamphilus, the
master of Eusebius, continued his work of scholarship. Here
Lactantius is a significant figure, writing his Divine Institutes
especially for the cultured pagans of his day. Before the persecu-
tion many from the educated and professional classes were joining
the Church. It was becoming possible to separate pagan literature
from the pagan faith with which it had always been so intimately
associated. For Julian the Apostate such a separation was in-
tolerable: one was not dealing merely with a literature, but with
sacred books — with scriptures. He who would expound the
scriptures must believe in their message. It is precisely Julian’s
banishment of Christian teachers from the schools which arouses
furious exasperation in S. Gregory of Nazianzus: the master-
pieces of the ancient world are a common possession to be shared
by pagan and by Christian. There were, indeed, those who, like
Chrysostom, found it difificult to overcome inherited scruples; in
unguarded moments they might condemn the whole of pagan
literature, but the Greek Fathers of the later fourth century had
EPILOGUE 707
been educated in the same school as their pagan contemporaries.
Yet though in speech and writing both employ the same rhetorical
style, there is yet a difference; the Christian has a vital message to
proclaim, and from the pulpit he still addresses not only the scholar
but also the simple believers — the throng of common folk. The
pagan writer of the period is concerned not so much with the
subject-matter of his oration, but rather with the form of its
presentation and his audience is in general a narrow and highly
cultured circle. To read a speech of Libanius and then to turn to
a homily of Chrysostom is an instructive experience. A fact that
is not always remembered is that it was this separation of the
classical literature from the pagan faith which rendered it easy for
the Church to appropriate the culture of the fourth-century world,
and which among pagans opened the way for the victorious
expansion of the Church.
When once the failure of the persecution had been avowed, a
toleration granted by express enactment was the natural result of
the situation thus created : what could not have been expected was
the profession by a Roman emperor of the Christian faith. It was
Constantine’s action coming precisely when it did which led the
Church to raise no questions, to accept without hesitation the gifts
of imperial favour — the unilateral offer of an alliance. Had the
conversion of the first Christian emperor come a century later, a
far more powerful and more numerous Christian society might
have imposed its own terms upon imperial authority: it might not,
for instance, have so readily admitted the emperor’s right to
summon the Councils of the Church or to sanction by his approval
the conciliar decisions: it might have insisted on a far-reaching
revision of Roman Law. It is not merely the fact of Constantine’s
conversion, but that it took place immediately after the dark hour
of the Great Persecution that gives it so permanent a significance
in the history of the Church.
Of great importance in the Empire’s history is the effect of
Constantine’s whole personality: here was the man chosen by the
will of God to fulfil His purpose. This belief he impressed so deeply
upon his contemporaries that it became an integral part of the
political theology of the later Roman Empire. The emperor’s title
to rule comes to him from God (e/c @eoS), and human electors do
but ratify the judgment of Heaven. And similarly Constantine
repeatedly asserted his conviction that the unity of the Church was
the condition and guarantee of the prosperity of the Empire. It
may well seem that for this principle of a united Church the
Empire suffered and sacrificed much, but in the end the dream of
EPILOGUE
708
Constantine was realized, and a common religious belief became
the cement which bound together the folk of East Rome. To the
unquestioned acceptance of such beliefs as these the personal
experience and the personality of Constantine must have con-
tributed not a little.
The Near East had remained a Greek world : when Diocletian
sought to encourage the spread of Latin in the Asiatic provinces,
it proved to be too late in the day to inaugurate such a change, and
the effort failed. But throughout the Empire Latin remained the
language of Roman law, and Latin was in consequence studied in
the Roman law schools, as at Berytus. Not only were both
Diocletian and Constaixtine very active as legislators, but at this
time a first beginning was made with the codification of the law of
the Empire. There were two collections of the constitutions of the
emperors, the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogeniaxus,
the latter containing only constitutions issued during the reign of
Diocletian. Both, however, were the work of private citizens and
unofficial. It was long before the example thus set was followed
by the State and imperial authority issued the codifications of
Theodosius and Justinian. In the sphere of law, as elsewhere,
Constantine was an innovator and it was he who first conferred
upon the bishops judicial powers. The original extent of that
grant has been disputed, but during the fourth century more and
more of a bishop’s time was occupied by what were really affairs of
State. The Emperor had given his support to the Christian Church :
the Church should in turn provide the State with a less corrupt
administration of justice than that of its own lay judges. And
because the Church had not remodelled the law of pagan Rome,
it was forced to supplement imperial legislation ; it had standards
of conduct unrecognized by the law of the State and these it
sought to enforce through ecclesiastical ordinance. The Church
began in its Councils to fashion its own canon law.
The fourth century learned from the experiments of the third
and systematized the latter’s tentative solutions. Among the
expedients to which the third century had had recourse were two
convenient, but perilous principles — those of corporate liability
and hereditary obligation. To these the fourth-century State
resorted when, faced with the burden of the added pomp of the
court and of the upkeep of an enlarged civil service and an
increased army, it was compelled to secure its revenues. The
result was that the initiative of the subject was stiflLcd, that the
aristocracy of the towns was rained, and that in province after
province the free peasants were successively reduced to the posi-
f|:
S'
EPILOGUE 709
tion of coloni, tied to the soil. The subject existed for the State,
and the State was a ruthless taskmaster. Where powerful landed
proprietors asserted themselves against the imperial claim it was
at the expense of the common good and in selfish isolation. Under
the strain of a burden unevenly borne the West of the Empire
foundered in bankruptcy ; the Eastern provinces, it was true, kept
the barbarians at bay, but in the task of conciliating their own
subjects the emperors of Constantinople failed. The Syrian and
the Egyptian resented exploitation at the hands of ‘the King’s
men,’ and disaffection was ended only by the Arab Conquest.
But elsewhere the third century pointed the way to a master-
stroke. The wars on the Eastern frontier had summoned em-
perors time and again to Antioch; Diocletian had fixed his court
at Nicomedia. At first Serdica had been for Constantine his
Rome, and before he finally chose Byzantium for his capital
he had begun building on the site of Troy. The city to which
Constantine gave his own name solved the third century’s search
for an Eastern capital: for a thousand years it stood as the
fortress which guarded civilization, as the power-house of the
Empire. With the sea at its gates, with the majestic harbour of
the Golden Horn to shelter the imperial fleet, with its landward
and seaward fortifications, it was indeed a peerless stronghold.
Never until the fatal day when in 1204 the Crusaders captured
the city did foreign arms break down the bulwark of the walls of
New Rome. No small part of the significance of Constantine’s
foundation lay in the fact that Constantinople was from the first
a Christian city and that its choice was directed by God. The God
of the Christians, the Mother of God whose robe was later to be
the city’s Palladium — these would surely defend their own. Until
1 204 that confidence was never disappointed. The foundation of
New Rome, the Christian capital infartibus Orientis, may well be
regarded as the symbolic act which brings to a close the history
of the ancient world.
/ ; , APPENDIX ON 'SOURCES . ^
LITERARY AUTHORITIES
Cassius Dio Cocceianus (see voi. xi, p. 855) had held important posts
both in the provinces and in Rome; he was twice consul, the second time as
colleague of Severus Alexander in 229. ” He spent ten years in collecting
material and then wrote a complete ‘annalistic’ history of Rome down to the
year 229 in eighty books (lxxiii, 23, 5)^, Of events after 1 80 he was himself
a contemporary and eyewitness (lxxiii, 4, 2), After a.d. 46 (lx, 28, 3) —
save for the incomplete texts of books 79 and 80 and for fragments preserved
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus — we possess his history only in the com-
pendium of Johannes Xiphiiinus (eleventh century). For Dio’s own view of
the Imperial constitution in the third century the speech put into the mouth
of Maecenas (lii, 14-40) is of the highest interest (see above, p, 59 sq,),
Herodian, a Syrian Greek, wrote in the third century a history of the
years 1 80—238 in eight books. For the latter part of the period he speaks as a
contemporary observer. He supplements the history of Dio, wdiose work he
did not use. His style is rhetorical, and the lengthy speeches which he is fond
of inserting are a weariness to the reader.
The Historia Augusta (see voI. xi, p. 856) is a collection of lives
(written ostensibly by six authors) of the Roman emperors from Hadrian
down to Numerianus, though the biographies from 244 to 253 are missing.
The collection purports to be dated to the reigns of Diocletian and Constan-
tine, and some scholars still accept this dating (see above, p. 598). But it is
now generally held tliat the work in its present form is a product of the
second half or the fourth century, whether of the reign of Julian the Apostate
(see above, p. 58), or of the reign of Theodosius. It has also been proposed to
date the collection to the early years of the fifth century, though the sugges-
tion that it was compiled in Merovingian Gaul has won no wide support^.
The date of composition is of significance, as far as the present volume is
concerned, mainly for the reign of Severus Alexander of whom the Historia
Augusta has a singular biography of otherwise unexampled length. If this is
in reality an anachronistic picture of the imperial ideals of J ulian the Apostate,
this fact must necessarily influence the use made of the life in writing the
history of the reign. In the same way if the main ‘tendency’ of the Historia
Augusta is hostility to Christianity (p. 223), this will similarly affect the
student’s judgment of the historical value of not a few parts of the collection.
These questions are still under discussion, and it is thus only natural that
a difference of view is reflected in different chapters of the present volume.
^ References from Dio are given according to Boissevain’s edition, books
■ being cited by the numbers on the left-hand pages of that work. Where
, any doubt can arise because of this notation, a reference is given to the page
of Boissevain’s edition.
^ For representative works in the controversy about the character, value,
date and purpose of the Historia Augusta, see below, p. 730*
APPENDIX ON SOURCES 71 1
Also the acceptance or rejection of details given in the w'ork is bound to be
governed by considerations of general probability and by the extent to which
the sources that have been used can be controlled by their re-appearance in
later historical writings (see below, p. ).
In the poverty of our other sources for the history of the third century an
increased importance attaches to the later brief epitomes of the history of the
Empire. Sextus Aureuus Victor, an African, wrote (c. 360) a historia
abbreviata—th^ Caesar es — which covered the period from Augustus to
Gonstantius; another short history of the Empire (down to Theodosius)
which purports to be an Epitome of the Caesares is really an independent
work of which only the earliest part is in any way derived from Aurelius
Victor. In the reign of Valens Eutropius wrote his Bremarmm ab urbe
cofidita 5 one of the most important and hotly disputed literary problems of the
fourth century is the question whether the writers or compiler of the Historia
Augusta used the Breviarium of Eutropius, or whether Eutropius and the
Historia Augusta both drew upon a (lost) common source. On the answer to
this question depends in large measure the precise dating of the Historia
Augusta,
Rufius Festus in his Breviarium (probably written after 369 and dedi-
cated to the Emperor Valens) sketched the growth and expansion of Rome’s
Empire and then in the second part of his compendium gave an outline of the
relations of Rome with the East. The Persian wars of the fourth century
would naturally awake an interest in such a subject.
Ammianus Marcellinus, the last true historian of the ancient world, a
soldier writing in Rome and, though a Greek, in the Latin language, com-
posed, towards the close of the fourth century, a history of the Empire from
Nerva down to a.d. 378. Unfortunately the thirteen books which brought
the history down to the year 353 are lost, and for the period covered by the
present volume it is only in chance references to earlier events that the work
is of service. Our reconstruction of the course of the third-century develop-
ment would be far more securely founded than it in fact is if we possessed the
lost books of one who wrote with impartiality and with personal knowledge
alike of the Roman West and the Roman East.
Of later works the Historia Nova of Zosimus (written in Greek between
450 and 501) is of importance since, for his account of the movements of the
Goths in the third century, he drew upon the Scythica of Dexippus, an
Athenian who played a leading part in the history of his city during the years
253 to 276 and had himself lived through the Gothic invasions. Further,
Zosimus is of interest since he represents the pagan point of view, using as a
source the lost history of Eunapius. But as a writer he is hurried and careless;
his use of his sources is exasperating and the effort to obtain from his work
any clear chronology appears at times to be a hopeless task. Similarly for
Gothic history the work of Jordanes — Getica — published in a.o. 551 is
significant, since it preserves extracts from the lost work on that subject of
Cassiodorus, though here again the extracts are unskilfully put together.
But Greek historiography continued for many centuries, and some names
must be mentioned however briefly. Petrus Patricius, born r. 500, was
ambassador for Justinian to the Gothic court in Italy and to Persia, and thus
his work, de legatiomhus^ of which only fragments remain, was written with
712 APPENDIX ON SOURCES
special knowledge. The liiiiYersal history of Johannes Maklas (sixth century)
in tweNe books^ despite woeful hiunders^ occasionally provides information
upon Eastern affairs; Georgius Syncellus '(early ninth century) compiled
chronological tables of history from.- the Creation to the accession of Dio-
cletiaiij incorporating materia! " from' Dexippus and Eusebius. John of
Antioch, probably in the seventh century, compiled a Chronicle of World
history from Adam to a,d. 6'I0 of. which we, possess fragments and Leo
Grammaticus in 1013 reissued ■ with, additions the' earlier Chronicle of
Symeon the Logothete which, beginning with Adam, was carried down to
A.D. 948. We possess excerpts from the great Encyclopaedia of historical
extracts which the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus had drawn up in
the tenth century, and probably ,'to tbe same age belongs the Lexicon of
Suidas, which includes articles on the' emperors. In the eleventh century
Johannes Xiphilinus, compiled an Epitome of the Roman History of Dh of
Nkaea, drawing on books xxxvi to lxxx of Dio; Georgius Cedrenus (be-
tween the eleventh and twelfth centuries) wrote a Synopsis of Histories \
Johannes Zonaras (tw^’clfth century) compiled an Epitome of Histories. All of
these are of service in so far as they have incorporated material for third-
century history which would otherwise have been lost to us (see below,
p: 72 i). ^ ^
There is singulaiiy little historical writing to the credit of Latin authors
of the later period of the Empire. St Jerome, probably at Constantinople
in the year 381, translated into Latin the tables of world history which
Eusebius had compiled and continued the work down to the year 378.
Orosius, who in 414 fled before the Vandal invasion of his native Spain
to Africa, under the inspiration of St Augustine wrote a world history
adversum Paganos (in seven books), to prove that the miseries of the time
were no greater than those of former pagan centuries.
Mention must also be made of a historical fragment, first published by
H. Valois — the writer is in consequence generally known as the J?ionyrrms
Faiesii — which covers the years 293—337. The author, probably a pagan,
seems to have been a contemporary of Constantine, for whose reigns the
fragment is a valuable historical source. It should be noted that the text has
been interpolated by the insertion of extracts from Orosius.
When we turn from the historians and chroniclers, it is the writers of the
Latin panegyrics who for the history of the early years of the fourth century
are of special value. They reflect the policy and dynastic ambitions of the
rulers of the Roman West and are particularly serviceable for any study of
Constantine’s political and religious development.
Of the Christian writers Tertullian and Origen illustrate Christian
apologetic — in the Jpokgetkum and the Contra Celsum, while Tertiilliaii’s
works provide not a little information on social life in North Africa.
Cyprian’s correspondence is a valuable source for any study of the renewed
• offensive of- the Roman State against the Christian Church, while both
Tertullian and Cyprian are important witnesses for the development of the
authority claimed hj the Bishops of Rome. But the outstanding historical
work from the Christian side is the Church History of Eusebius, Bishop of
Caesarea in Palestine, which has preserved for us many original documents
either in whole or in part; here the methods of Alexandrian scholarship are
APPENDIX ON SOURCES 713
appropriated in the service of the Church by one who had been trained in the
tradition of Origen. Further, Eusebius alone has left us a detailed history of
the course of the Great Persecution within a single province of the Empire,
In his martyrihus Palaesiinae he gave a complete list of all the martyrs
who died in Palestine; he hoped that others might imitate his example and
make from their own personal knowledge similar local records; had they done
so, we might to-day have been in a position to write an account of the
Persecution as a whole. — It should be noted that from a study of the manu-
script tradition E. Scliwartz has distinguished the successive editions of the
Ecclesmstical History which were issued between 31 1 and 325 (see his article
in P.W.i.'^;. Eusebios).
The work which is commonly known under the Latin title Fita Constantini
is in fact entitled e/!? rov jSiov rov fiaicapvov K.(ov(TTavrLvov /SacriXico^:
it does not profess to give a complete biographical record, but only deals
with the Emperor’s actions so far as they advanced the Christian religion —
raTi’po^ TOP deo^tXrj (Twrelvovra / 3 iov (i, 1 1). The critics of this panegyric
written after Constantine’s death have often failed to take account of the
author’s express object in writing the work.
There has been long dispute whether the philosophic and highly cultured
student of Cicero, Lactantius, who as a teacher was summoned from Africa
to Nicomedia by Diocletian, could have been the author both of the Divine
Institutes and of the bitter and impassioned pamphlet On The Deaths of the
Persecutors. But the Lactantian authorship of the De mortibus persecutorum
is now generally accepted. The account of the inception and course of the
Persecution is vividly dramatic, but, though the story as Lactantius told it has
often been questioned, there is, it would seem, no adequate reason to doubt its
substantial truth. In his view that Galerius was the moving spirit in setting on
foot the Great Persecution Lactantius is supported by Eusebius, and it is
not easy to reject this agreement of the two contemporary writers (see above,
p. 665).
For a period of history where our sources are so meagre the student must
seek to base his chronology on ail the available evidence whether of inscrip-
tions, papyri, coins (see below) or the dating of imperial constitutions. In the
economic crisis, however, of the third century there was little money to spend
on such expensive memorials as inscriptions, and thus the constitutions cited
in the Code of Justinian acquire an added importance. But there are
difficulties: it is often uncertain whether the text of such constitutions in its
present form can be trusted, while it is unfortunate that none of the imperial
orders which introduced the Diocletio-Constantinian reforms have been
preserved. (For the introduction into Egj^t of the new system of taxation
see the recently published papyrus cited on p. 338).
N. H. B.
(2) COINS
The ancient coin, like the modern, was primarily a means of exchange,
and, in the absence of a developed system of banking, was even more important
commercially than the modern. It was, at the same time, less efficient for
its immediate purpose, inasmuch as it was less accurately struck and adjusted
to weight, and frequently lacked date and mark of value. Unlike the
modern, the ancient coin had often something of a medaliic character —
714 • APPENDIX ON, SOURCES:
that is to say, it., referred directly to particular historical happenings of the
time. Even apart from this, it was, in a far higher degree than the modern
coin, an expression of the State in .its religious and symbolical aspect.
What is true of ancient coins as a whole is true in a pre-eminent degree of
the coinage of the Roman Empire. It has a function quite distinct from the
commercial. It supplies an almost continuous commentary on events and
policies, keeps before the public the emperor, his features, titles, achievements,
travels, and at the same time sketches in a background of thought and senti-
ment which helps to explain the events that fill the foreground. The Roman
imperial coinage is, in fact, a series of medals, .imr,rating the history, and
suggesting the atmosphere of political life, reign by reign.
A coinage of this character must obviously be considered seriously as a
source for history. Even if the literary authorities were much more satis-
factory and unbroken than they actually are, the coinage would still supply
an invaluable check on accuracy and would add its own colour to the
historical narrative. The accidental gaps in the tradition make numismatic
evidence doubly valuable, as it may restore to us facts either completely lost
or, at least, obscured in the literary tradition.
When we speak of * Roman Imperial Coins’ we usually mean the coinage,
with Latin legends and in Roman denominations, issued by Roman authority,
regularly in Rome, less regularly in the provinces as well. In the Early
Empire Rome is the one great centre. The division of the coinage into the
two branches. Imperial gold and silver and senatorial aes, affords a means of
forming some conclusions of interest about the relations of princeps and
Senate. Provincial mints arise, at first, from rebellions in the provinces and
seldom from any other cause. In the second century of our era Rome seems
to enjoy a monopoly of Imperial coinage that is almost complete. But in the
third century there begins to appear a series of provincial mints, striking
imperial denominations for military purposes, which finally develops into the
system of Diocletian. Other coinage was struck, more or less directly by
Roman authority, for certain provinces and, locally, by Roman permission,
at a very great number of city-mints. These mints were always predominantly,
after the Early Empire exclusively. Eastern. Any part of this coinage may
occasionally yield material of value for history, and will some day yield more,
when it has been collected and adequately annotated. For the time we are
concerned primarily with the Imperial and senatorial mints of Rome and
with mints of a similar character in the provinces. The greatest of all Greek
mints, that of the second city of the Empire, Alexandria, will also give
much help, particularly for chronology.
Before we can appraise the value of such a coinage for history, we must ask
the question, what order of validity can it claim? Does it represent official
opinion? Does it reflect public opinion in any vital sense? If it is official,
does it represent the higher officialdom or merely some unimportant bureau,
left to work without much direction from higher quarters? Was the coinage
considered to be of sufficient importance to be treated seriously as an instru-
ment of politico ?
The first problem is, who controlled the mints? The imperial mint of
Rome was run byimperial freedmen and slaves. But, from the reign of Trajan
onwards, it is under a procurator monetae^ answerable, if not to the emperor
APPENDIX ON SOURCES 715
himself, at least to his chief financial officer^ the a rationihus. The senatorial
mnt of Rome seems to have been, nominally and in part at least actually, dis-
tinct from the imperial. It was presumably under the supreme direction of
both to emperor and Senate, and the
iresviri a., a. a f, who can be traced as late as the third century of our era,
may still have found employment there. The mints in the provinces, when
operating independently of Rome, must have been controlled by the financial
officers on the spot. The third century presents a picture of transition. Even
apart from the provincial ‘empires/ the Empire was tending to break up into
a number of great administrative districts. The mints of the third century
represent this change. Perhaps subordinated in the first instance to the
Roman, they must have become in practice more and more independent.
The logical conclusion of the development is seen under Diocletian. Each
mint is now under its own procurator or rationalise who is answerable not to
Rome, but to the financial chief of his district. So much for the Imperial
coinage. The provincial and local coinage, as far as it bore on anything
beyond local needs, was certainly under some kind of official check.
The answers to the questions that we have posed may now be given with
some assurance. The coinage was under chiefs who could, if need be, secure
access to high authority. The facts of the coinage themselves complete the
answer. Had the coinage dealt only in a vague and general symbolism, it
might have been possible to regard it as no more than the self-expression of
a minor department of State. But this is definitely not the case. The coinage
deals, not occasionally but consistently, with events of historical importance,
with policies vital for the well-being of the Empire. It introduces to the
attention of the public the assistants whom the emperor associates with him-
self in his task and restores the memory of those members of the Imperial
House of the past whom the emperor delights to honour. The working-out
of a programme in its details of type and legend may have been left to the
technical advisers of the mint, but the general instructions must have been
issued by high authority and the final draft must have been passed and
approved by it. From the time of Trajan, there was 2, procurator monetae ^
and it is reasonable to assume that his task lay rather with these general
questions of policy than with the technical work of the mint. Before Trajan
there may have been less formality, at a time when the Imperial service was
still run largely under the forms of a great private household. None the
less, control, even if less formal, will have been just as real.
It is known that the emperors took pains to report news to the Roman
public in the form of the acta diurna, officially edited by a special officer. In
so far as the coins record definite events, we may think of them as very short,
carefully selected extracts from those acta^ illustrated with suitable types.
But this does not exhaust their content. They deal also with hopes, aspira-
tions, promises and prayers, and, to give due expression to these, a dose
acquaintance with the general thought and feeling of the age and with the
symbolical expression of it was essential.
A few examples from history may be selected to illustrate these points.
The coinage struck for Agrippa and Tiberius under Augustus, for Ger-
manicus and Drusus under Tiberius, for Nero under Claudius, had in each
case serious political significance and was certainly controlled and directed
7i6 appendix on.- sources
with due care. The ‘constitutionar. coinage of the first period of the reign
of Nero gives place to a self-assertive*. self-advertising coinage after the sup-
pression of the conspiracy of Piso (voL x,. pp* 726 sqq.). There is an abrupt
change in th.e tone of the coinage when-Nerva succeeds Domitian, a scarcely
less abrupt* and less to be expected change* when Trajan succeeds Nerva. In
neither case can it be accidental*. The adoption of Hadrian by Trajan is most
carefully and judiciously brought to the notice of the public on the coins.
Septimius Severus marks his acceptance of Aibinus as Caesar by striking for
him at the mints of Rome, When* in a.d. 195, Aibinus breaks with Severus*
this coinage at Rome ceases and is replaced by a little coinage for Aibinus
at Lugdununi* with the title of Augustus. The Palmyrene ascendency in the
East, the Gallic and British empires in the West* find their full commemora-
tion in the coinage. Many of the pretenders of the Great Anarchy have left
a numismatic record of their short-lived efforts. The Sun-worship of Aurelian
is written large on the coins of his reign* and the praise of the Jovian and
Herculian dynasties fills a great part of the coinage of the reign of Diocletian,
These examples represent no more than an arbitrary selection from an
almost inexhaustible stock. They fully Justify the assertion that the coinage
was very seriously regarded as one of the most effective means of publicity
and propaganda. Knowing as much as we do of the close personal attention
that a conscientious emperor might devote to the details of administration*
we may be sure that not infrequently decisions on major points of coinage-
policy were taken direct by him.
One or two objections may be raised. ‘This view,^ it may be urged,
‘implies that the Roman regarded his coins with a close attention that seems
hardly thinkable, when we reflect how casually we regard them to-day,^
The answer to this is to be seen in a marked and notable difference between
ancient and modern usage. The Roman studied his coins attentively, because
he knew that he would find on them something worthy of his attention.
There were also far fewer rival claims on that attention.
A more serious objection may be found in the rare instances in which coin-
age does not represent history as we know it from other sources. Take,
for example, the reign of Gaius. The coinage faithfully represents his first
phase of constitutionalism, based on the great inheritance of Augustus; it does
not reflect his later phase of megalomania. The apparent exception only
confirms the rule. Had Gaius lived longer, his vagaries might have spread
to the coinage. As it was, his subordinates, realizing that he was unbalanced,
succeeded in keeping his extravagances from finding official expression on the
coins. A similar explanation may be advanced to explain the akence of coins
for many of the pretenders of the third century. In some cases* coins may
have been struck in such limited quantities that none have chanced to
survive. Accident may still restore such issues to our knowledge. But* in
others* the absence of coinage maybe real and significant. The pretenders
may never have laid claim to the rank of emperor, and the absence of
coins is a warning not to take too readily at face-value such lists as that
of the jfugustan History with its ‘Thirty Tyrants.’
This much agreed, what may we reasonably expect to learn from the
Imperial coinage? From accidental error it will be as good as free. Where
the same type and legend are attested by a number of dies, such error is
appendix on ..sources:
automatically eliminated. In this respect the coin takes precedence of even
the best single inscription. The coin may also be trusted, in general, to be
true in point of fact. What purpose would there be in commemorating on the
coinage a largesse that had not been given or an act of State that had not hap-
pened? How far the com will be true in spirit and interpretatioii is a harder
matter to decide. We must obviously expect to find the official point of view,
with such deviations from absolute veracity as that must involve. But, for
one thing, this official point of view is so inadequately represented in the
literary tradition that the consistent expression of it on the coins has a value
of its own. And, further, we have just seen reason to suppose that occasional
extravagances of imperial government may have been evened out by the sane
tradition of the imperial service. That a regard for public opinion formed a
continuous check on the coinage may be assumed with confidence and,
occasionally, demonstrated in detail. The frequent advertisement of ‘libertas’
and the ‘optimus status rerum’ under the ‘optimus princeps’ shows that the
administration was conscious of having clients to consider, with definite
tastes and requirements of their own. The provincial mints of the third
century show, as might have been expected, traces of special needs and wishes.
One great advantage of the coinage, particularly in the third century, is that
it is continuous, where the literary tradition is so broken. It is, in fact, the
only surviving continuous source for the period. In considering its historical
use, it is the third century that is here most in point, and it may be con-
sidered under the following headings: (i) Chronology. (2) Current events
at home and abroad. (3) The emperor and his subjects. (4) Religion.
(5) The background of thought and sentiment in the empire.
(1) Chronology. Imperial coinage is often dated by the tribunician power,
the consulships, the titles of honour and the imperatorial acclamations of the
emperor. In some reigns, as those of Antoninus Pius to Commodus, or of
Septimius Severus to Maximinus Thrax the record is almost unbroken. But,
even where dated coins are rare, the undated can usually be placed within a
year or so of their true date by comparison with the dated material. In many
instances this exact chronology is still to be attained, but it is already certain
that it may reasonably be hoped for in the future. Thus for almost all
questions of dates numismatic evidence is of cardinal importance. It can be
used in conjunction with our other authorities to establish a true chronology;
when the coins and the other authorities disagree, it is to the coins that we
must give the preference. A few examples will suffice. The coins show,
that Valerian reckoned the beginning of his reign from a date before the
end of August A, D. 253. They provide the true limits of date for the Gallic
Empire, a.b, 258--9 to 274 and the true order of the Gallic emperors,
Postumus, Laelianus, Marius, Victorinus, Tetricus. They prove that Vic-
torinus was never adopted as co-regent by Postumus (seep. 188, n. i).
The high tribunician numbers of Aurelian, tr. p. vi and vii, with cos. n,
seem to point to a reckoning continued from that of Claudius II. Finally,
they enable us to fix the death of Carus with some precision in July 283, and
show that Maximian can only have been Caesar for a very short time.
(2) Current events at home and abroad. The content of the Imperial
coinage varied appreciably from age to age, and the period of maximum
historical interest was already past by the third century. General references
7 i8 ■ APPENDIX:.ON SOURCES , ;
to victories^ vows, largesses, arrivals and ^departures still: occur, but they begin
to assume less particular form than', in the earlier '''reigns,. ' Claudius '.'for
example celebrates a ‘victoria Gothica/ Aureliaii 'his 'victories', over •Zenobia
and Tetricus, but it is mainly' with such simple types' as Victory , or trophy
and captives, not with such elaborate pictorial designs' as the ‘Imperator’
types or the rex parthis batvs of Trajan.
Even so, the coins have something to add to history.': The coinage of
Postumus at the mint of Milan, at the very moment when that city was in
the ..hands of Aureolu'S, reveals a -fact otherwise unrecorded, that' Aureolus
.was 'acting in' the name of Postumus (p. 189). : It th,rows a new, light both
on the activities of Aureolus and on the -relations of the Gallic Empire with
Rome. The coins of Carausius supply valuable' evidence for the character
of the peace which he won from Rome (see p. 333)-
The absence of coinage can be as significant as its presence. The fact that
Aurelian strikes no coins for Vaballathus at any of his own mints is strongly
against the theory that he ever recognized him as his co-ruler in the East.
The absence of coins of Carausius in mints of the Empire defines clearly
the limits of the ‘peace’ with the Empire achieved by that hardy rebel.
As has already been suggested, the fact that so many of the ‘Thirty Tyrants’
have left no coinage suggests grave doubts of the reality of their usurpations.
On the other hand, the discovery of coins of Domitianus and Saturninus in
recent years is a warningthat gaps maybe accidental and that, where issues
are in their very nature rare, chance may have played a large part in survival
or the reverse. The rare gold coins of Uranius Antoninus add a curious little
chapter to the history of the East in the early third century (p. 70),
(3) The emper&r and his subjects. The emperor is the centre of the coinage,
senatorial as well as Imperial. His portrait replaces the original deity or city-
type of the obverse. His family relationships, his marriages, his children, his
heirs, his vows and largesses, his comings and goings still fill up a large part
of the canvas. The decline of the Senate is shown in the disappearance of its
mark,S. C., from the coinage and in the general fall of the aes coinage as a
whole. In the references to the emperor, as elsewhere, the general tends to
replace the particular. Vows and largesses are no longer chronicled with so
much detail and such a type as adventvs avgvsti seems to assume a wider
symbolical significance, not so much the entry of the emperor into his capital
city in actual presence, as the ‘advent’ of the saviour to his waiting world.
In one respect the coins have a quite exceptional importance. They outrun
the legal facts and theories and show the actual process by which the princeps
passed into the dominus et deus of the Late Empire. Whatever the constitu-
tional theory, the emperor on coins continually appeared with attributes,
borrowed from the gods, and with suggestions of Eastern royalty. The gradual
invasion of the coinage by such forms has recently been demonstrated in a
remarkable paper^. By the reign of Aurelian they are becoming explicit,
so much so, in fact, that Diocletian seems rather to impose some slight check
on them than to promote their further development. The extraordinary
demonstrations of fervour and loyalty at the mint of Serdica show clearly
that coinage could faithfully mirror local feeling.
^ A. Alfoldi in R&m. Mitt, jl, 1935, pp. i sqq.
APPENDIX ON SOURCES 719
(4) Religion, The religious note is never long silent in any part of the
coinage.^ The references to the emperor and his virtues, for example, have
their religious aspect. For this section, however, we reserve more specifically
religious demonstrations. Elagabalus crowded the Roman coinage with the
honours of his local Syrian Baal. Decius chose the figures of the Illyrian
peoples (Dacia, Pannoniae, Genius Exercitus Illyriciani) rather than the
figures of the gods to symbolize the revival of old Roman ways and beliefs
that he wished by their aid to achieve. It is his series of coins of the deified
emperors, the ‘ Divi,’ that represents the spirit that prompted the first general
persecution of the Christian Church. The ‘ubique pax’ of Gallienus refers
more to the internal peace in his domains, the peace with the Church in-
cluded, than to the peace that was not secured in the Empire as a whole^,
Aurelian celebrates Sol, his divine helper, ‘Sol dominus imperi Romani.’
Coins of the end of his reign, continuing down to Probus, show Sol as
bestower of empire through the ‘loyal’ army, Diocletian advertises widely
the dynasties of the ‘Jovian’ and ‘Herculian’ emperors and then enters on
his war with the Christian Church under the sign of Genius, ‘Genius Populi
Romani,’ ‘Genius Augusti’ (see above, pp. 414
(5) General background. Finally, the coinage performs the valuable
function of suggesting the unspoken beliefs that governed the minds of men.
Perhaps the most important suggestion of all is what may be called the
theme of the ‘optimus status rerum,’ defined by the protection of the gods
and the virtues, immanent and operative in the emperor. The picture varies
from time to time and from mint to mint, and it will be possible to attach
fuller meaning to the variations, when the significance of the individual
signs of this pictorial alphabet is known more accurately than at present.
Prominent always are the thoughts of the divine protection, of the victory
and valour of the emperor, of his peace — ^his quality as peace-bearer— of
his power as lord of material wealth and plenty, as author of concord and
even of liberty.
Closely connected with this theme is that of the Golden Age. The modern
man dreams of progress, of steady advance along new paths into a richer and
fuller life; the ancient dreamed vaguely of a return to ideal conditions, dimly
placed in the remote past, of the restoration of a magical, almost unbelievable
profusion of well-being, material and moral. This theme haunts the coinage:
the old hope revives again and again, undaunted by constant disappointment.
A similar theme, but with more reference to the future, is that of the
‘Aeternitas Imperii’ or the ‘Aeternitas August! ’ or, again, of ‘Roma
Aeterna,’ in which the stress falls on the divine mission of Rome and her
emperors. A touch of mysticism seems here to fall on the material world.
The eternal overshadows the temporal and men find consolation, amid scenes
of change, in contemplating the permanent assurance of happiness and peace.
Yet another theme is that of ‘Concordia,’ in the Imperial House, in the
State, above all, in the army. Here the ‘Concordia’ types have at times a
peculiar and sinister significance of their own. They are the comment of the
mint on the terrible facts of the military anarchy, an instance of what is
now called wish-fulfilment.
^ See however, p. 194.
720 : APPENDIX ,.ON 'SOURCES
Thus the coinage pTovides ,a continuous, exposition of the policy of the
Empire,., as it presented it before the bar of 'public opinion. One-sided of
course it is; how can an ‘apologia pro vita sua’. be otherwise? But it enables
us to fill in the background which the ..literary authorities so often leave
empty, and to realize the mood in; which Rome of the third century faced
and surmounted the strange vicissitudes of the times. So much the coins
can already give. They will have more to give in future: for we can
already see before us an ideal, realizable, if only partly realized — an exact
chronology and attribution to mints and a complete annotation, based
on comparison with the whole of the evidence for, the Empire.
But, apart from the evidence of the. coins as medals, they have, naturally,
their own significance for economic .history* . The great inflation and collapse
of the third century, the reform of Aurelian and the more drastic reform of
Diocletian represent important chapters in economic history (chaps, vii, ix).
We can already make some use of them, and shall be able to make more when
numismatists can agree better on their facts and interpretations. Already the
coins suggest interesting conclusions about the policy of the emperors in face
of the army and the civil population, about the causes of discontent, par-
ticularly in the West from Aurelian to Carausius, and, perhaps, about the
inner meaning of the great rise in prices that called forth the Eduium de
maximis pretiis of Diocletian.
Finally, there is the evidence of coin- finds, whether in hoards or in chance
deposits on sites. For frontier districts such evidence, when complete, should
be decisive for the date of the Roman abandonment. It can already be used to
control thedate of the Roman abandonment of Dacia (p. 30i,n. i). Atpresent,
however, the evidence is not fully available and there is doubt in places of its
exact bearing. Do the multitudinous hoards of Tetricus and his fellows mark
the course of barbarian invasions or do they rather show the refusal of the
Western provincial to give up his old coins for the money of the reform of
Aurelian?
Here, as at many other points, numismatic evidence must be used with
due caution. But it is beyond doubt that in the coins lies a treasure, partly
won, partly awaiting further study as a condition of its full exploitation; a
treasure which, failing new discoveries of inscriptions or manuscripts, oifers
almost our only chance of penetrating the thick darkness that still envelops
so much of the history of the third century.
NOTES
I. THE SOURCES FOR THE GOTHIC INVASIONS OF
THE YEARS 260-270
The statements of ancient authors about the Gothic wars under Valerian
and Galiienus show an unprecedented state of confusion, for the reasons that
follow. First, the late compendia and, with special exaggeration, the Hist or ia
jlugusta have represented Galiienus, according to a literary convention, as a
tyrant sinking ever lower and lower, and thus have made it seem as if the
heaviest disasters fell at the end of his reign. Next the compiler of the Historia
jiugustahzs divided up piece-meal the several accounts of the Gothic wars
and scattered them throughout his text, often with repetitions; and he did
not flinch from seeking to enhance the credibility of his procedure by
repeated arbitrary insertions of datings by consuls. The result is that scholars
have been so far misled that modern accounts are full of Gothic wars which
never happened. Fortunately, it is possible to show that the compiler drew
his material from the very compendia which served as sources for the By-
zantine authors whose works have been preserved.^
These authors, then, must supply the due to a judgment of the source-
material, as also for the chronological order of events. For the Gothic wars
of Galiienus and Claudius II the decisive evidence is the fact that the state-
ments of the Vita Gallieni coincide with the narrative in Syncellus and so
must be arranged and reconstructed according to the order given by the latter,
whereas in the Vita Clauiii the source followed by Syncellus is exchanged for
that followed by Zosimus. All other statements — or almost all — can be
grouped round this two-fold core; and by this process three, and only three,
invasions between 260 and 270 can be distinguished.^ These are as follows.
A. The expedition to Asia Minor, reported by Syncellus, p. 716, 16 sqq,
(Bonn) is contained in the following passage of the Vita Gallienh 4, 7—0;
6, 2; II, I ; 12, 6. Besides these, the same account is to be found in Jordanes,
Get. XX, 1 07-8 M. The date is given by the death of Odenathus in the spring
of 267, which followed immediately upon the expedition.
B. After this Syncellus p. 717, 9 sqq. gives the account of the next great
German expedition to western Asia Minor, Greece and the Balkan countries,
of which a brief paraphrase is also to be found in Zosimus i, 39, i and 40, i.
The account in the Vita Gallieni 13, 6-1 o, together with the notices
5, 6-6, I, agrees with the source of Syncellus. Jordanes also (Get. xx, 108)
clearly separates the expedition from the preceding one: ‘post Asiae ergo
tale excidium Thracia eorum experta est feritatem.’ Some additional details
are to be found in Dexippus, frag. 28 (Jacoby, F.G.H. ii, p. 472) and in
Jordanes, Get. xx, 108 M; cf. Ammianus Marcellinus xxxi, 5, 16, S.H.A,
^ See for a good instance the analysis of the war against Postumus in
Zeitschr. fur Num. xl, 1930, pp. ll sqq,
^ This process renders obsolete the present writer’s arguments in ‘A got
mozgalom 6s Dacia feladasa’ in Egyet ernes Philologiai Kozlmy^ ^930*
46
C.A.H. XII
NOTES
722
Claud. 12, 4, .etc.' Thc' date of the w.ar. can be deduced from the, i.nterruption
due to the complications with Aureolus and .the death of Galiieiius on his
.hasty return to Italy,
■ , C. Syncellus (p, 7 20) mentions the fact that in the next year' (under Claudius
in 269) the Heruli once more made an expedition by sea, .whichj however,
had little success. The , compiler of the Historia Jugusta had apparently
before him a correspondingly short mention in the source' of Syncellus and
regarded it, as, too meagre' to suit his preconceived purpose, of glorifying
Claudius, , For this reason, he changed over to the use .of the source of
Zosimus I, 41 sqq. With this coincides, in particular, the account of the
Gothic war of Claudius in the Fita Claudii^ 18, 14 6, 1-2; 6, 55 8, i,
2, 45 9, 3-4; 9, 7-85 II, 3-85 12, I. 'Short. notices in Zonaras xii, 26
(p. 604 sq.), Ammianus Marcellinus kc. cit.^ Petrus Patricius frag. 1 69
(Cassius Dio, ed. Boissevaiii, in, p/745), ■Cedreiiu.s, i, p. 454, 12 sqq. etc.
coincide with this account. The surprising fact then emerges that the first,
larger half of his narrative coincides with the account of the expedition of
268 given in Syncellus p. 717 and the sources that correspond with it (see B
above). The points of likeness are too numerous to be accidental, as will be
seen from the table which follows.
B
1
(Invasion of Goths and Heruli in
the last year of Gallienus)
(Invasion of Goths and Heruli
under Claudius II)
I. The barbarian fleet takes Byzan-
tium and Chrysopolisj it is here
defeated in a naval engagement
(Syncellus 717 sqq.\ S.H.A. :
Gall, dm 1 3, 6—7). j
Naval battle off Byzantium (S.H.A,
Claud. 9, 7).
2. Cleodamus ‘and Athenaeus* as
admirals (S.H.A, Gall, duo
13 . 6 )-
The Athenian Cleodcmus comes
with a fleet to Greece, and drives
out the barbarians (Zonaras xii,
26 [p. 605]).
3. Capture of Athens by the Ger- Capture of Athens by the Germans
mans (Syncellus, he. ctt,\ (Zonaras loc. clt. j Petrus Patricius
Zosimus I, 39, i). frag, 169, Cedrenus, i, p. 454, 12
etc).
4. Unsuccessful attack on Cyzicus Failure before Cyzicus (Zosimus i,
(Syncellus loc. nV.; c£ S.H.A. 43, i).
GalL dm 13 , 8 ).
5. Siege of Thessalonica, and its Siege of Thessalonica and the ap«
abandonment because of the proach of the Emperor (Claudius)
approach of the Emperor (Gal- (S.H.A, Claud. 9, 8; Zosimus i,
lienus) (Syncellus, kc. ctt.% 43, 15 Zonaras xix, 26 [p. 604 ry.];
Zosimus, I, 39, i; S.H.A. GdL '.Eusebius frag, i 0 acoby, f\GM.
dm 5, 6). II, p. 480)),
NOTES
723
B
(Invasion of Goths and Heruli in
the last year of Gallienus)
C
(Invasion of Goths and Heruli
under Claudius II)
6. The imperial army destroys 3000
barbarians at ‘Nessus’ (Syn-
cellus, loc. cit.)y Gallienus wins
a victory in Illyricum (S.H.A.
Gall- duo 12,0; cf. Zonaras xii,
24 [p- 596I).
The Dalmatian cavalry of the Em-
peror (Claudius) annihilates 3000
Germans (Zosimus i, 43, 2). The
Emperor wins a victory at ‘Naissus’
(Zosimus I, 43, 2).
7. The defeated Germans retreat
to the mountain Gessax and
defend themselves with a laager
(S.H.A. GalL duo 13, 9).
' The laager of the defeated Germans
1 mentioned in Zosimus i, 45, i, and
in S.H.A. Claud. 6, 1-2; ii, 3*
8. Marcianus takes over the com-
mand (S.H.A. GalL duo 13,
10).
The successes of Marcianus (S.H.A.
Claud- 6, i).
9. The remnant of the defeated
barbarians urge the other bar-
barians to invasion (S.H.A.
GalL duo 13, 10).
The identical, verbally coincident
statement in S.H.A. Claud- 6, 1—2;
cf. Zosimus (i, 45, i), who also
mentions the ‘ remnant of the bar-
barians’.
In view of this close connection of the two accounts, it is beyond doubt
that the same German offensive is the theme of both, and that the battle at
the Nessus and at Naissus is the same battle. It is also readily intelligible
that the operations, begun under Gallienusand consummated under Claudius,
against the Germans who made their invasion in 268 and were not destroyed
until 269 should have been epitomized from the Scythica of Dexippus by one
late-classical author under the earlier emperor, and by a second author under
that emperor’s successor; that this double entry was not observed by the
undiscerning and superficial late-classical compilers is not at all unusual.
What is important is that the continuation of the account of this war in
Zosimus 1, 45~6 and the corresponding passages of the Fit a Claudii (11,3-4;
1 1 , 6-8 ; 1 2, 1 ; 9, 4) whicli treats of new conflicts and the ending of the war
by Claudius are organically continuous with the preceding events, a fact
which makes it certain that they belong to the year 269. What Syncellus
(p. 720) has to say of the new naval expedition, and what Zosimus and the
Vita Claudii tell us of an expedition by new hordes of Germans against the
(Danube) provinces in 269 can easily be brought into harmony with this.
724
NOTES
2 . HERODIANUS, KING OF PALMYRA
H. Seyrig in Syria^ xviii, 1937, pp* i sqq. has shown that^there was also
a son Herodianus^ king of Paimvra, He has the title " King of Kings ’
which he could hardly have borne auring the lifetime of his father Odenathus
(as his colleague)* He is credited with a victory over the Persians, but this
was not an honour limited to the eldest brother, since Vaballathus also, after
him, could be called Persicus Maximus {Jnn. ipig. 1904, no. 60). It seems,
therefore, that this Herodianus cannot be identified with the Herodes who
met his death in 267. A further argument is that the woman, represented
with him on a lead seal (Seyrig, op. cit. PL VI, i~2), can be none other
than Zenobia with the laurel-wreath- of the Empress (Jugusta) (cf. A. Al-
foldi ill Rom. Mitt l, 1935, p. 124) and she did not enjoy that position
until after the death of her husband. Herodianus, then, seems to be the
correct name of the Hereiinianus of the Historm Jugusta (Trig. tyr. 27).
If Herodianus did not survive long, then the third son, Vaballathus, may be
the Timolatis of S.H. A. Trig. tyr. 28.
A. A.
3. INFLATION IN THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES
(a) From Nero to Marcus Aurelius. Nero had, so it seems, reduced
the weight of the aureus like that of the denarius, the one by about
6*5 per cent., the other by about I2‘6 per cent., and lowered its content
in precious metal at the same time to about 95-90 per cent. Trajan
carried this reduction to 85, Marcus Aurelius to 75 per cent. The earlier
view was that this was done in order to improve the State finances, but
recently scholars (F. Heichelheim, P. L. Strack, G. Mickwitz and W.
Giesecke) have inclined to see in it, so far as the second century is con-
cerned, no more than an adjustment of the currency to the market price
of the metals (gold becoming cheaper, silver becoming dearer). This they
regard as a consequence of the highly mobile non-monometallic Roman im-
perial currency and of the reckoning of the coins by their intrinsic value.
This hypothesis also, in the view of the present writer, overshoots the mark.
First, a reduction of weight is combined with a reduction of purity of content j
second, the temporary fall in the value of gold of about 4 per cent, in the time
of Trajan so far as P. Bad. 37 yields any moderately assured evidence^, and
the debasing of the silver, which under Trajan as compared with Nero is of
II per cent., do not all certainly correspond 5 third, account has to be taken
of Hie fact that the gap between' coined and uncoined gold may be con-
siderable (G. Mickwitz, Geld uni Wirtschaft im rbm. Rekhe des 4. Jahr--
hmderts n. Chr. p. 44) so that .a certain tariJBng downwards of the latter is
^ The text says: the aureus (xpvaov<l) was dealt in at eleven instead of
fifteen drachmae. Segre's interpretation (at 1 1 1 instead of 115 drachmae in
copper), despite all, remains, in the view of the present writer, more probable
than that proposed by W. K. Prentice and A. C. Johnson in Jmer. Journ.
of Arch. XXXVIII, 1934, p- 52 (that gold stood to silver in the relation of 1 1 : i
instead of 15:1).
NOTES
725
possible; fourth, the character of the coins as issued by the State influences
their nominal value (W, Giesecke, Antikes Geldwesen^ p, 248) so long at
least as the State remains powerful and can command confidence. A de-
crease in the value of money, which happens by very small stages and which
is taken in hand by a powerful state concurrently with a prudent increase in
the money in circulation, does not, therefore, of necessity result in any im-
mediate, rise in 'prices \
Very far-reaching conclusions have been drawn concerning the fall
of prices in the second century from P. Bad. 79 (probably of the time of
Antoninus Pius) because it was taken to give a price for wheat of 6 drachmas
an arfabey but the difficulties of interpretation which the text offers are such
that the papyrus cannot for the present be used with profit.
{b) From Commodus to A.D, 256. Under Commodus the alloy of the
denarius reached 30 per cent, and more, under Septimius Severus about
50 per cent, by A.D. 256 about 60 per cent In accordance with this,
instead of 25 denarii being equivalent to an aureus in the reign of Anto-
ninus Pius, 50 denarii in the time of Severus Alexander and about 60 in
A.D. 244/5 became equivalent to an aureus, which itself, as it seems, now was
issued in an irregularly smaller weight. Cf. Mickwitz, op. cit. p. 35; F. Hei-
chelheim in Klio xxviy 1933, p. 102. For the same reason the legionary pay
rose from 300 denarii (under Domitian) to 375 (under Commodus), to 500
(under Septimius Severus), to 750 (under Caracalla); the price of bread at
Ephesus doubled between the time of Trajan and the beginning of the
third century; and the price of corn in Egypt rose to double or two-and-a-
half times. Heichelheim, op. dt. p. 102 sq.y Mickwitz, op. dt. pp. sqq.y
48-
For the great inflation after a.d. 256 see above, p. 266.
FR. o.
^ On the slowness of this process see Heichelheim himself now in Ecom
Hist III, 10 Feb. 1935, p. 10.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
[See aiso; General BiMiograpliy, Parts ii and iv.]
-epig.
Abh, Arch.
Aeg.
A.J.A.
A. J. Ph. ,
Ann. dpig.
Arch. Anz.
Arch. Pap.
Arch. Relig.
Ath. Mitt.
Atti Acc. Torino
Bay. Abh.
Bap. S.B.
B. C.H. ■
Berl. Abh.
Berl.S.B.'
BJ.
B.M. Cat ,
B.S.A.
B. S.R.
Bull. Comm. Arch,
Bursian
CJ.L.
C. J.
CP.
C.Q.
C.R.
C.R. Ac. Inscr.
Dessau
Ditt.^
Eph. Ep.
F.Gr. Hist
F. H.G.
Germ.
G. G.A.
Gott. Abh.
Gdtt Nach.
Harv. St.
H. Z.
LG.
LG.R.R.
Jahreshefte
J.D.A.I.
J. d. Say.
J.E.A.
J.H.S.
AbhandlungenB.. archlol.-epigraph. Seminars d. Univ* Wien.,
Aegpptus. Rivistar'taliana di egitto,!ogia e di papirologia. ,
American Journal of Archaeologp-
American Journal of Philology,
Lh^nnee epigraphique.
Archaologischer Anzeiger (in J.D.A.L).
Archiv flir Papyrusforschung.
Arcliiy fiir Religionswissenschaft
Mitteilungen des' deutschen arch. Inst. Athenische Abteilung. '
Atti della reale Accademia di scienze di Torino.
Abliandlungen d. bayerischen Ahad. d. Wissenschaften.
Sitzungsbericlite d. baverischen A.kad. d. Wissenschaften.
Bulletin de Correspondance hellenique. ■
Abhandlungen d. preuss, Akad. d. Wissenschaften zn Berlin.
Sitzungsberichte d. preuss.- Akad. d. Wissenschaften. zu Berlin.
Bonner Jahrbiicher.
British Museum Catalogue.
Annual of the British School at Athens.
Papers of the British School at Rome.
Buliettino della Commissione archeol. comunale,
Bursian’s Jahresbericht
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
Classical Journal.
Classical Philologp.
Classical Quarterlp.
Classical Review,
Comptes rendus de FAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae.
Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. Ed. 3.
Ephemeris Epigraphica,
F. Jacoby’s Fragmente der griecliischen Historiker.
C. Muller’s Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum.
."■Germania,
Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen.
Abhandlungen d. Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften zu Gottingen.
Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu,"
Gdttingen. Phil.-hist. Klasse.
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology.
Historische Zeitschrift.
Inscriptiones Graecae,
Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes.
Jahreshefte d. osterreichischen archaologischen Instituts in Wien.
Jahrbuch des deutschen archaologischen Instituts.
Journal des Savants.
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
Journal of Hellenic Studies.
J.R.S.
Mem. Ac. Inscr.
Mem. Acc. Lincei
Mem. Acc. Torino
Mnem.
Mon. Line.
Mus. B. , .
N. J. £ Wiss.:
N. J.KI. Alt.
N.J.P.
Not. arch.
N. S.A.
Num. Chr.
Niim. Z.
O. G.I.S.
Phil,
Phil. Woch.
P. LR.
P.W.
Rend. Line.
Rev.' Arch.
Rev. Beige
Rev. E. A.
Rev. E. G.
Rev. E, L.
Rev. H.
Rev. Hist. Rel.
Rev. N.
Rev. Phil.
R. -G. K. Ber.
Rh. Mus.
Riv, Fii.
Riv. stor. ant.
R5m. Mitt.
Sachs. Abh.
S. B.
S.E.G,
Suppl.
Sjmb. Osl.
Wien Anz.
Wien S.B.
Wien. St.
Z. D. Pal.-V.
Z. d. Sav.“Stift.
Z.N.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS^^^^^
Journal of Roman Studies.
Memoires de FAcaddmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
Memorie della reale Accademia nazionale dei Lincei,
Memorie della reale Accademia di scienze di Torino.
Mnemosyne.
Monumenti antichi pubblicati per cura della reale Accademia
nazionale dei Lincei.
Musde beige.
Neue Jahrbiicher fur Wissenschaft und Jugendbildung.
Neue Jahrbucher fiir das Massische Altertum.
Neue Jahrbucher fur Philologie.
Notiziario archeologico del Ministero delle Colonie.
Notizie degli Scavi di AntichitL
Numismatic Chronicle.
Numismatische Zeitschrift
Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Seiectae.
Philologus.
Philoiogische Wochenschrift.
Prosopographia Imperii Romani.
Pauly-Wissowa-Kroli’s Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Alter-
tu mswissenschaft.
Rendiconti della reale Accademia dei Lincei.
Revue archdologique.
Revue Beige de philosophie et d’histoire.
Revue des etudes anciennes.
Revue des dtudes grecques.
Revue des etudes latines.
Revue historique.
Revue de Fhistoire des religions.
Revue numismatique.
Revue de philologie, de littdrature et d’histoire anciennes.
Berichte der Romisch-Germanischen Kommission.
Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie.
Rivista di filologia.
Rivista di storia antica.
Mitteilungen des deutschen arch. Inst. Rdmische Abteilung.
Abhandlungen d. sachs. Akad. d. Wissenschaften zu Leipzig.
Sitzungsberichte.
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.
Supplementband.
Symbolae Osloenses.
Anzeiger d. Akad. d. Wissenschaften in Wien.
Sitzungsberichte d. Akad. d. Wissenschaften in Wien.
Wiener Studien.
Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins.
Zeitschrift d. Savigny-Stiftung f. Rechtsgeschichte, Romani-
stische Abteilung.
Zeitschrift fur Numismatik.
For Papyri see the list of titles and abbreviations given in VoL x, pp. 922 ryy.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
These. bibliographies do not aim' at completeness. They include modern
and, standard : works and, in particular, books utilized in the writings of the
.chapters. Some technical m.onographs, especially in .journals, are omitted.,
but the works that are .registered below will. put the .reader on their track.
.. .The first page only of articles in journals is given. .
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 . General Histories
Albertini, E, U Empire romain. (Yol. hr in the Eeupies et CwiUsamns Series directed
by L, Halphen and .P. Sagnac.) Paris, 1929.
Barbagallo, C. Rorna Jntica, ii. VImpero romam. (Vol. n of Storia unhersaie.)
Turin, 1932.
Besnier, M. U Empire remain de ravmement des Siwh’es an cencik de Nicde. (Vol. iv,
I, of Hisioire remaine in the Histoire gdnirale directed by G. Glotz.) Paris, 1937.
Boah, A. E. R. A History of Rome to a.d. 565. Ed. 2. New York, 1929.
Chapot, V. Le monde remain. Paris, 1927.
von Domaszewski, A. Qeschichte derromtschen Kaiser. 2 vols. Ed. 3. Leipzig, 1922.
Frank, T, A History of Rome. London, n.d. [1923].
An Economic History of Rome. Ed. 2, Baltimore, 1927.
Gibbon, E. The History of the Decline arid Fail of the Roman Empire^ edited by J. B.
Bury. London, voL i, 1896.
Kornemann, E. and J. Vogt, Romische Qeschichte in Gercke-Norden, Elnkitung in
die Ahertumsmssenschafi, Ed. 3,111, 2. Leipzig-Berlin, 1933.
Lot, F- La Fin du Monde antique et k Dihut du Moyen Age. Paris, 1927,
Miller, S. N. The Roman Empire in the first three centuries. In European Cwiiiza-
iion: its origin and development (ed. E. Eyre), n. London, 1935, pp* 279-522.
Mommsen, Th. The Provinces of the Roman Empire from Caesar to Diocletian.
(English Translation by W, P. Dickson in 1886, reprinted with corrections
in 1909.) London, 1909.
Niese, B. Grundriss der romiscken GescMchte nebst ^elknhunde. 5te Auflage
neubearbeitet von E. Hohl. (Muller’s Handhuch der klassischen Altertums-^
toissenschaft^^mAm, Aht. 5.) Munich, 1923.
Parker, H. M. D. A History of the Roman World from A.D. 138 to 337, London,
1935.
Rostovtzeff, M. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. 1926. Ed. 2,
Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft im romiscken Kaiserrekh. Leipzig, n.d. [1930]:
ed. 3, Storia economica e sod ale deW tmpero Romano. Florence, 1933.
A history of the Ancient World. Voi. ii, Rome. Oxford, 1927.
Seeck, O. GescMchte des Untergangs der antiken Welt. 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1921.
Stein, E. GescMchte des spatromiscken Reiches. Vol, i, Yimmy 1928.
Stevenson, G. H. The Roman Empire. London, 1930.
Stuart Jones, H. The Roman Empire^ ^.c. 29-A.n. 476. 3rd Impression, London,
1916.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
im
II. Works op Reference, Dictionaries, etc.
Abbott, F. F. and A. C. Johnson. Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire^
Princeton, N.J., 1926.
Daremberg, Ch. and E. Saglio. Bictionnaire des antiquitds grecques ei romaines
d^apres les textes et les monuments, Paris, 1877-1919. (D.S.)
De Ruggiero, G. Dizionario Epigrajico di Antic kit d romane, Rome. 1895- *
(Diz. Epig.)
Friedlander, L. and G. Wissowa. Barstelhmgen aus der Sittengesckichte Roms,
Edd. 9 and 10, Leipzig, 1919-21.
Gercke, A. and E. Norden. Einleitung in die Altertumswissensckaft, Ed. 2, Leipzig-
Berlin, 1914. Ed. 3 in course of publication.
Hirschfeld, O. Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian, Ed. 2.
Berlin, 1905.
Klebs, E., H. Dessau and P. von Rohden. Prosopog^apkia Imperii Romani Saec, /,
II, III, Berlin. VoL i, ed. E. Edebs, 1897; vol. 11, ed. H. Dessau, 1897;
vol. Ill, edd. P. de Rohden et H. Dessau, 1898. Vol. i of the 2nd edition, edd.
E. Groaget A. Stein, Berlin-Leipzig, 1933; vol. ii, 1936. (P.LR.)
Liibker, Friedrich. Reallexihn des klassischen Aliertums fur Gymnasien, Ed. 8
(bf J: Geffcken and E. Ziebarth). Leipzig, 1914. (Lubker.)
Marquardt, J. Romiscke Staatsverwaliung, Leipzig. Ed. 2. Vol. i, 1881; vol. ii,
1884; vol. HI, 1885.
Mommsen, Th. Romisckes Staatsreckt, Leipzig. Vol. i (ed. 3), 1887; vol. ii, i (ed.
3), 1887; vol. II, 2 (ed, 3), 1887; vol. Ill, I, 1887; vol. Ill, 2, 1888.
von Muller, Iwan. Handbuck der Altertumswissensckaft, (In course of revision
under editorship of W. Otto.) Munich, 1886- (Mullers Handbuch.)
Platner, S. B. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, (Completed and revised
by T. Ashby.) Oxford, 1929.
Sandys, Sir J. E. A Companion to Latin Studies, Ed. 3. Cambridge, 1929.
Stuart Jones, H. A Companion to Roman History. Oxford, 1912.
Wissowa, G. Paulfs Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissensckaft, Neue
Bearbeitung. (Under editorship of W. Kroll.) Stuttgart, 1 894- . (P.W.)
III. Chronology
Bickermann, E. Chronologic, in Gercke-Norden, Band iii. Heft 5. Leipzig-Berlin,
1933.
Griffin, M. H. and G. A. Harrer. Fasti Consulares, A.J.A. xxxiv, 1930,
pp. qfosqq,
Kubitschek, W. Grundriss der antiken Zeitrecknung, in Mullers Handbuch, i, 7.
Munich, 1928.
Leuze, O. Bericht ilber die Literatur zur Chronologic {Kalendar und Jahrzaklung)
in die Jakren 1921-1928. Bursian, ccxxvii, 1930, pp. 97-139.
Liebenam, W. Fasti Consulares imperii Romani mn 30 Chr. bis 565 Ckr,
Bonn, 1909.
IV. Numismatics
Bernhart, M. Handbuch zur Munzknnde der romischen Kaiserzeit. Halle a.S.,
1926.
Cohen, H. Description hisiorique des monnaies frappdes sous P empire remain , Ed. 2.
Paris, 1880-92,
730 GENERAL
Matdngly, H. and E. A, SydeEham. The Romm Impinai'Coimge. London^ foI. tw^,
, part i ' (Pertinaz to Geta), 19,36; voi. t, by P. H. Webb, part' i (¥alerian to
Florian), X927, part ii (Probns to DiocietiaE),,i933. (M,,-S.) ,
Milne, J. G. Catalogue of Akxmirtan Coins in ike Askmokan Mmsmm. ' Oxford,
1932-
Schniz, O. Th. Die Rechtsilte! mi Regkrmgsprogramme auf r^mischn 'kaiser-
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Vogt, J. Die alexandriniscken Miinzxn: Grundiegung einer akxandriMtschn
KaisergescMckte, Part i. Text; Partxi, Miinzyerzeiclinis.. Stuttgart, 1924,
V, SouiiCE Criticism '
A. Genera!
teo, F. Die grtechisck-romhch BiograpMe nack threr Uueraruckm form. Leipzig,
' ,T90'r.
Peter, H. Die giscMcktiiche Literatur Uber die romlscke Kaiserzeit bis Tke&dosius
I und'ibre ^§elien, Leipzig, 1897. 2 to1s»
Rosenberg, A. Einleisung urn! ^te lien hmde zur romiscken GescMcbie, Berlin, X921;
Wa'Clismntli, C. Einkitung in das Studlum der alien GescMckte, Leipzig, 1895,
B. Special
(For treatment of particular portions of the Sources see the bibliographies to the
relevant chapters.)
Schultz, H. Art. in P.W. sjo. Herodianus (3).
Schwartz, E. Art. in P.W, s.v. Cassius (40) Dio Cocceianus.
(Items 3-13, on the Historla Augusta^ are in chronological order to show the
progress of the discussion.)
Enmann, A. Eine verlorerie GescMckte der rdmhcken Kaiser. Phil. Siippl. iv, 1884,
'■ P* 337 ._, , ■■
Dessau, H. Uber Zeit und Fersonlickkeit der Scriptores His tori ae Augustae. Hermes,
XXIV, 1889, p. 337. Cf. ib, xxvii, 1892, p. 561.
.De Sanctis, G. Git Scriptores Hhtoriae Augustae. Riv. stor. ant. i, 1896, p- po. ■ ,
Tropea, G. Siudi sugii Scriptores Histortae Augustae. Messina, 1899.
Lecrivain, C. £tudes sur PHistoire Auguste. Paris, 1904.
Seeck, O. Poiiiiscke Tendenzgeschickte im 5 Jahrhundert. Rh. Mus. nxvn, 1912,
P-59I;'
Mommsen, T h. Die Scriptores Mstorlae Augustae. Ges.Schrift vn,, 1 909, pp. joz-i 2,
Hohl, E. Das Problem der Hisiorta Augusta. N.J. KL Alt. xxxin, 1914, p. 698. ■
von Domaszewski, A. Dk Personennamen bet den Scriptores Htsioriae Au^stai.
Held. S.B. 1918, 13 Abh.
Baynes, N. The Eistoria Augusta, its date and purpose. (With Bibliography.)
Oxford, 1926,
Hohl, E. Berichi uber die Literatur zu den Scriptores Bistoriae Augustae fur dk Jake
1924-1935. Bursian, Band cclvi, 1937, pp. 127-156.
CHAPTER I
THE ARMY AND THE IMPERIAL HOUSE
A. Ancient Sources
(1) Texts
Codex Justinianus^
rec. TL Mommsen, ed. 14, Berlin, 1922.
Dio Lxxiv-Lxxx (lxxix, 2, 2-LXxx, 8, 3, in the original text, mutilated; the rest
in the abridgement of Xiphilinus, supplemented bj citations of Dio in the
Excerpta Constantiniana and elsewhere), ed. U. P. Boissevain, vol. iii, Berlin,
1901.
Herodian ii-v, ed. K. Stavenhagen, Leipzig, 1922.
Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. E. Hohl, i, Leipzig, 1927.
Philostratus and Tertullian olFer an occasional item for the general history of the
period. See also Aurelius Victor, the Chronographer of 354, the Chronicle
and the Ckronicon Ease kale; the Epitome de Caesaribus, Eutropius, Festus, Orosius,
and Zosimus.
For the later (Greek) tradition see the Excerpta Constantiniana^ F.H.G. iv,
Malalas, Suidas, Georgius Syncellus, and Zonaras.
(2) Coins *
In addition to the relevant pages in the works of Cohen, Mattingly-Sydenham, and
Vogt, cited in the General Bibliography (IV), see also
British Museum Catalogues of the Greek Corns. London, 1873-1927.
Dattari, G. Numi Augg. Alexandrini. i, Cairo, 1901.
Hasebroek, J. Untersuchungen zur Geschickte des Kaisers Septimius Severus.
Heidelberg, 1921, pp. 152-72. (Numismatic material for the reign of Severus:
cf. W. Kubitschek in Num.Z. xiv, 1921, p. 184.)
Mattingly, H. The Coinage of Septimius Severus and Ms Times. Num.Chr. 5th ser.,
xn, 1932, p. 177.
(3) Inscriptions
The more important inscriptions will be found in Dessau, Ditt.®, I.G.R.R., and
O-G.LS., supplemented by Ann. epig., Eph. Ep., and S.E.G. See also
Hasebroek,], Op. cit. pp. 174-94. (Epigraphic material for the reign of Severus.)
de Ruggiero, E. Dizionario epigrafico di Antichita romane, Rome, 1895-, s.vv,
Caracalla, Elagabalus (the god), Geta, Heliogabalus, etc.
(4) Osiraca
Wilcken, U. GrkcMsche Ostraka aus Aegypten und Nubien. Leipzig, 1899, i,
pp. 802-5.
(5)
See especially B.G.U. 902; Mitteis- Wilcken, Grundzuge und Ckrestomatkie^ i, ii,
22, 96, ryr, 245, 407, 408, 461, 490; n, ii, 375, 377 (= P. Giessen 40^), 378;
P. Lond. 351; P. Oxy. 1100, 1405, 1406, 1408, 1905; P.S.L loi, 102, 105, 249,
683; Preisigke, SammelhucM S, 4284; Rostovtzeff, C.R. Ac. Inscr. 1933, p. 316 «
Ann. epig. 1933, no. 107 (from Doura). See also, for chronology, B.G.U. 326;
732 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mitteis-Wilcken^ §p. ck. i, ii, 96; P. Gremf* 60; P. Oxj, 719^ 1725; and, for tke date
of tlie Egyptian jonrney of Sevems, tEe imperial rescripts published at Alexandria in
199-200 {}. Plasebroekj §p, «/. p. 119).
For the literature on P* Giessen 40^ see below under B (d) the ^ Constitutio
Antoniniaaa,-' ■
B. Modehn Works
(a) Criticism of tke Sources
In addition to the works of Baynes, Leo, Peter and Rosenberg cited in the General
Bibliography (p. 730), see
Baaz, E. De Herodiam fontikus it amioritaie. Diss. Berlin, 1909,
Hasebroek, J. Die Fdlsckung der Vita Ni^i md Vita A!Um in den SM.A. Diss.
Heidelberg, Leipzig/Berlin, 1916.
Honn, K. ^ellentmtersuchungm zu den Viten des BelkgaSahs md des Semrus
Alexander im Corpus der S,ff.A. Berlin, X911.
Reosch, W. Der Mstoriscke Wert der Caracaliavka in den Scriptores Historiae
Angus tae. Klio, Beiheft xxw, 193X.
Roos, A. G. HerodiaAs Methd of Composition, J.R.S. v, 191 5, p. 191.
Schulz, H. Art. in P.W. s,v, Herodianus (3).
Schulz, O. Th. Beiirage zur Krittk unserer iiterarischen tf kerliefirnng fur die Zeit
mm Commodus* Sturze Ms auf den Tod des M, Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalk),
Diss. Leipzig, 1903.
Schwartz, E. Art. in P.W. sxt, Cassius (40) Dio Cocceianus.
Yan Sickle, C. E. The Headings of Rescripts of the Semri in the Justinian Code,
C.P. xKiii, 1928, p. 370.
Smits, J. S. P. De fontihus e ^uiius res a Heliogahalo et Alexandro Severo gestae
colliguntur, Diss. Amsterdam, 1908.
Werner, R. Der historische Wert der Pertinaxmta in den Scriptores Historiae
Angus iae, Klio, xxyi, 1933, p. 283. (But cf. G. Barbierik criticisms in Stud,
itai, di fii, class, xni, 1936, p. 183,)
if) General
See also the relevant pages of works in the Genera! Bibliography (pp, 728-30) not
included in this list In the works cited here, and in the footnotes to the chapter,
references vriH be found to monographs and articles dealing with special topics.
Basset, H. J. Macrinus and Diadumentams, Diss. Michigan, X920.
Bihlmeyer, K, Die ^sjrmkeA Kaiser zu Rom (21 1-235) Ckrhtentum,
Rottenburg, 1916,
Butler, O. F. Studies in the Life of Biagahalus, Univ. of Michigan Studies, New
York, 1910.
de Ceuleneer, A. Bssai sur la Me et le rigne de Septime Sdphe, Brussels, 1 880.
Cumont, F. Art. in P.W. s,v, Elagabalus (the god).
FIuss, M. Arts.^in P.W. sjm, Helvius (15 a) Pertinax (Supp. iii, 1918, coll 895-
904); Septimius (32) Geta; Severus (13).
Harrer, G. A. The Chronology of the Revolt of Fescennius Niger, J.R.S. x, 1920,
p. 155, (C£ J. Hasebroek in Phil. Woch. mn, 1923, coll. 397--9.)
Hasebroek, J. Untersuckmgen zur Gesckkkte des Kaisers Septimius Severus*
Heidelberg, 1921.
Herzog, G. Arts, in P.W. s,m, lulius 566 (Domna), 579 (Maesa), 596 (Soaemias).
Holzapfel, L. RSmische Kaiserdaten, Klio, xviii, 1923, pp. 99-103 (Pertinax);
253-6 (Didius Julianus and Sepdmius Severus).
TO CHAPTER I 733
Homo, L. Les primleges admimstrattfs du Bdnat romain sous P Empire et kur dis^
parition graduelk au cours du III* siecle. Rev. H. cxxxvn, 1921, p. 161;
cxxxvm, 1921, p. X.
Keyes, C, W. Tke Rise of th Equites in the Third Century of the Roman Empire,
Princeton, NJ, 1915.
Lambrechts, P. La composition du Binat romain de Beptime Bdpere a Diocldtien,
Diss. Pann. Ser. i, fasc. 8, Budapest, 1937.
M^cchioTopY, LUmpero romano nelP eta dei Beveri, Riv, stor. ant x, I905-6,
p. 201; XI, 1906-7, pp. 285, 341.
Platoauer, M. On the date of the defeat of C, Fescennius Niger at Is sus, J.R.S. viii,
: ;■ X 9 x 8 ,.p."i 46 .
— — The Life and Reign of the Emperor Lucius Beptimius Severus, Oxford, 1918.
Reuscli, W. Art in P.W. Pescennius (2) Niger.
Revilie, J. La Religion a Rome sous les Sdperes, Paris, 1886.
von Rohden, P, Art, in P.W. s,p, Aurelius 46 (Caracalla).
Scbulz, O. Tb. Der rmische Kaiser Caracalla: Genie, WaJmsinn oder Verhrechen.
Leipzig, 1909.
— — Fom Prinzipat zum Dominat, Pader born, 1919.
Stein, A. Der romische Ritters tand, Munich, 1927.
Williams, M. G. Studies in the lives of Roman empresses: i. Julia Domna, A.J.A,
2 nd ser. VI, 1902, p. 259.
von WotSiVSL, A, Arts, in 'F,W, s,vv, Clodius (17) Albinus, Didius (8) lulianus,
(c) Britain
References to the more important texts and inscriptions and to the coin evidence
will be found in the footnotes to section IV of the chapter. The following bibliography
relates especially to the archaeological evidence.
For evidence of destruction at the legionary headquarters at York and Chester in
the late second century, and of a subsequent restoration, see S. N. Miller in J,R,B, xv,
1925, p, 176; XVIII, 1928, p. 61, and J. P. Droop and R. Newstead in Liverpool
Ann, of Arch, xviii, 1931, p. 7 and xxiii, 1936, pp. 5-6 (cf. the fragmentary inr
scription, XVII, 1927, p. 212, no. 3).
For Wales see V. E. Nash- Williams in Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1931, p, 157
(cf. id,, Catalogue of the Roman inscribed and sculptured stones found at Caerleon,
Cardiff, 1935, p. $, no. 2 = C,I.L, vii, 106); R. E. M. Wheeler, Prehistoric and
Roman Wales, Oxford, 1925, pp. 232-3; Begontium and the Roman Occupation of
Wales, London, 1924, pp. 46-66 (cf. CJ,L, vii, 142); The Roman amphitheatre at
Caerleon, Archaeologia, lxxviii, 1928, pp. 153-4; and The Roman Fort near Brecon,
Y Cymmrodor, XXXVI i, 1926, pp. 79-83.
For the system of the Wall as the evidence stood in 1920, see R. G. Collingwood,
Hadrian^ s Wall: a history of the problem, J.R.S. xi, 192 1, p. 49. For the progress of the
investigation of the Wall and its outposts since 1920 see the reports of excavations by
F. G. Simpson, L A. Richmond, and E. B. Birley in Archaeologia Ae liana, and
Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiq, and Arch, Bociety„
For evidence of a Severan reoccupation of Birrens, in Dumfriesshire, see E. B,
Birley, in the Proc, of the Boc, of Antiq, of Scotland, lxxii, 1937-8.
For Scotland in general, in relation to the campaigns of Severus, see besides Birley,
op. cit, F. Haverfield, Roman Scotland, Edinburgh Review, ccxin, 1911, p. 487;
F. Haverfield and Sir G. Macdonald, The Roman Occupation of Britain, Oxford,
1924, p. 123; Sir G, Macdonald, Roman Coins found in Scotland, Proc. of the Soc.
of Antiq, of Scotland, lii, 1917-18, pp, 252-3, 274-6, and The Roman Wail in
Scotland, ed. 2, Oxford, X934, pp, X3-19.
7:34
BIBLIOGRAPHY
. / AntoninianaV'
For a review of tlie Fterature oii'tlie Comtitutio which appeared betweenthe publica-
tion of P. Giessen 40, in igi'O, and 1934. $ee
Jones, A. M- Amtker Interpreiaiwu qf ike ^ConsiUutk JMimmmmJ' xxvi,
1936, pp. 223-7.
■ For. views .of the Constitotio since 1934 see, besides Jones, «V. pp. 2. .27-3;,
MhQTtB.tio^:E,^'AMmjMzi&^e smrica alh studio del dirim Romam Gmstmiam^ i.
Rome, 1935, p. 3.
Kreller, H. Romiscke RecktsgescMcMe i.ii Grundrisse des Deuisckes .Meekies* Heransg.
von H. Stoll nnd H. Lange. Tubingen, 1936, p. 33,
KiiMer, B. Art. in P.W. r.s?. Peregrinos^ coM. ■64I-3.
Knnkel, W. Rmischs Primirecki auf Grund des Werkes mn Pm! Jors. Ed. 2,
Berlin, 1935, p. 57, n. 10.
Schdnbaner, E, Reicksnckt^ V&iksncht und Prmin%ia!ricM. Ptudkn uber die
Bedeutung der Constkuiio Antoninima fur die romiscke Reekiseniwkklmg.
Z.d. Sav.-Stift. Lvn, 1937, p. 309.
Schniz, F, Prindpies of .Roman Law. Oxford, 1936, esp. p. 123, n. 3.
We.iss, E, Grundzuge der rdmiscken ReckisgescMckte. Reichenberg, 1936, p., 104.
TO CHAPTER II
735
CHAPTER II
THE SENATE AND THE ARMY
A. Ancient Sources
(i) Inscriptions
For inscriptions compare the selection in Dessau, iii. Index iii, pp. 293-7, Ditt ®
888, and O.G.LS. 519, 578, 640, with the references given in the footnotes to the
chapter. Besides these see also the books and articles hj K. Honn, A. Jard^ P* W.
Townsend, W. Thiele, and M. G. Williams (under Modern Works).
(2) Coins
In addition to the works of Cohen, Mattingiy-Sydenham, and Vogt cited in the
General Bibliography (IV) see
Bosch, CL Die kleinasiatiscken Miinzen der romiscken Kaiser^eit, Teil ii, Bd. i :
Bithynien, i. Haifte, Stuttgart, 1935, pp. 52-7, 205-6.
Elmer, G. Die Munzpragung von Viminacium und die 'Leitrechnung der Provinz
Ober-Moesien. Num. Z. (N.F.), xxviii, 1935, p, 35.
Pink, K. Der Aufbau der romiscken Munzpragung in der Kaiserzeit. iii. Von
Alexander Severus bis Philippus. Ib. p. 12.
(3) Papyi
P. Berl. Bibl. i, with U. Wilcken’s revision in R Deissmann, Lickt vom Osten^
Stuttgart, 1909, p. 277. P. Par. 69 : cf, U. Wilcken, PkiL liii, i 894, p. 8 1 « Ckresto-
mathie^ i, 2, no. 41, Yale CoU. of Papyri, no. 156 = P, W. Townsend, A.J,Pk, li,
1930, p. 62. C. C, Torrey, A Syriac Parchment from Edessa of the year 243
Zeits. f. Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete, x, 1935, p. 33: cf. A. R. Bellinger and
C. B. Welles, A Third-Century Contract of Sale from Edessa in Osrkoene^ Yale Class.
Stud. V, 1935? P-93* Compare F. Hohmann, Zur Chronologie der Papyrusurkunden
{Romische Kaiserzeii\ Greifswald, 19 ii, pp. 15-17, and O. W. Reinmuth, The
Prefect of Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian^ Klio, Beiheft xxxiv, 1935, p. 138.
(4) Texts
Codex Jus tint anus, rec. P, Krueger, ed. 9, Berlin, 1915: index pp. 491-3,
Corpus legum ah imperatoribus Romanis ante Justinianum latarum, von G, HaeneL
• Leipzig, 1857.
Digesta, rec. Th. Mommsen, ed. 14, Berlin, 1922. (The references will be found in
the footnotes to the chapter.)
Dio ixxvin, 30, 3 : lxxix, 17, 2 ry.; 19 Xf.: lxxx, 1-5, ed. U. P, Boissevain, voL iii,
Berlin, 1901.
€ts fiacriXia = Ps.-Aristides, or, 9 (ed. L. Dindorf), =* or. 35 (ed. B. Keil), See
E. Groag, Studien zur rom, Kaisergeschichte, ii, Linz, 1918, p. 13, and M.
RostovtzeiF, The Soc, and Econ, History of the Rom. Emp, Oxford, 1926, p. 397
(and cf. p. 614, note 15).
Eusebius, Hist. eccL (ed. E. Schwartz), vi, 21-3; 28 xy.; 34; 59.
Herodian v-vin, ed. K. Stavenhagen, Leipzig, 1922*
BIBLIOGRAPHY
736
Jordanes^ Geiim 83-90; Romm& 280-3 (ed- Tli. MommseE)*
Orosiiis, Hisrnrme adversm Fagams^rn^ 18,6-21, 2 (ed. C. ZaEgemeister,. Leipzig,
■;;i889). ^ /"V, ■■■; ,
Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. E. HoM, Leipzig, 1927. Alexander Bemrus:
Maximini dm: Gordiani ires: Maximus it BalMnus, For fuller references see
the index to Hoiil, voL ii, pp, 251, 258, 273, 283, and 284, and for the Philippi,
P«' 289 * ■
Zosimns I,. 1.1-22; in, 14, 2, and 32, 4, ed. L, Mendelsso.Im., Leipzig,„i 887,
For some other items see Ammianns Marcellinus Xiv, i, 8, xxni, 5, 7, 17, and
XXVI, 6, 20; Anonjmns Valesianus (ed. V. Gardthansen), § 33, and Julian, Conzmium
(Caesares), 3 1 3 a. For the later Latin tradition , .see Ai3.relitis \lctor, the Epitome de
CaesdriSuSf and Eutropins: for the later Greek tradition see John of Antioch, Malalas,
Georgius Sjncellus, and Zonaras. '
B. Modern Wor.k:s
{a) Works embracing the whole period
¥on -DomEszew^ski, A. I^te Daten der scripiores historlM Augustae .mm Bemtms
Alexander Ms Cams, S.B. Heidelberger Akad. 1917, Abh. l.
Herzog, E. Geschkhie und System der romiseken Staatsmffmsung, ¥oL ii, .i, Leipzig,
1887, pp. 487-519.
Manaresi, A..' U Impero Romano e ll Cristlanesimo. Turi,n, 1914, pp. 298-323...
Neumann, K. J. Der romische Staat und die aligemelm Kirche, ,Vol. i, Leipzig,
1890, pp. 207-54.
Schulz, O. Th. Vom Prinxipat %um Dominate Faderborn, 19 1.9, pp. 21-76,
196-203.
{B) Semrus Alexander
Baynes, N. H. The Hisiorta Augusta^ its Date and Purpose. Oxford, 1926.
Bihlmeyer, K. Die ^syrischen'* Kaiser xu Rom (21 1-235) und das Ckrhtenium.
Rottenburg, 1916, pp. 68-166.
Honn, K. ^ellemmtersuchungen xu den Fiten des Hellogabalus und des Semrus
Alexander im Corpus der S, H. A. Leipzig/Berlin, 1911.
Homo, L. Les primleges administratifs du sinat romain sous rEmpire et ieur
pariiion graduelle au cours du IIP sikle. Rev. H. cxxxvii, 1921, p. 16 1;
'CXXXV.m,.. 1921, p.". I. ■' . ■
Hopkins, R. V. N. The Life of Alexander Bemrus. Cambridge Historical Essays,
no. xiv, 1907.
Jard^, A. Itudss critiques sur la me et le regne de Bimre Alexandre, Paris, 1925;
c£ W, Schur, G.G.A, 1929, p. 504.
JuUian, C. Eutoire de la Gaule, Vol.'iv, Paris, 1924, pp. S34-7.
Macchioro, V. V Impero romam nelP eta dei Bemru Riv. stor. ant. x, 1905-61
p. 201; xi, 1906-7, pp. 285 and 341.
Meyer, P. M. Die Epistula Bemrt Alexandri Dig, XLIX^ i, 25 P, Oxy. xvii,
2104). Studi in onore di P. Bonfante, ii, 1929, p* 341-
Thiele, W. De Bemro Alexandra Imperatore, Berlin, 1909.
Van Sickle, C. E. The terminal dates of the reign of Alexander Bepirm. C.F. xxii,
_i927,p. 315.
Williams, M. G. Studies in the Lwes of Roman Empresses: Julia Mamma, Uni-
versity of Michigan Studies, Human. Ser., voL i, 1904, p. 67.
Arts, in P.W. saw. Aurelius (221) Severus Alexander (Groebe); lulius-ldk
(558) Avita Mamaea and lulk (579) Maem (Herzog); Gessius ( 6 ) Marcknis,
Sallustius (4) (A. Stein), and Seius-Sek (22) (Fluss).
737
TO CHAPTER II
(c) Maximinus Tkrax^ the Gordians^ Pupknus and BalMnus
Bersanetti, G. M. Massimmo H Trace e la reta stradale delP impero romano. Atti III
Congr, nazionale di Stiidi Romani, I, 1934, p. 590.
Studi in Massimino il Trace, I rapporti fra Massmim e il Benato, Rivista-
Indo-Greco-ItaliGa, xvm, 1934, p. 89.
Brusin, G. Gli Beam di A(puileia, IJdine, 1934, pp. 73-6,
Cklderini, A. Milan, 1930, pp. 52--61.
Carcopino, J. Le ^ Limes'^ de Numldie et sa garde Byrienne, Syria, vi, 1925, pp. 30-
.57; 118-^149. :
Costa, G. Art i'.e'. Gordianus in Diz. Epig.
Lehmann, K. F. Kaiser Gordian II L Berlin, 1 91 1.
Lolirer, J. De C. lulio Fero Maximino, Diss. Munster, 1883.
Seeck, O. Der erste Barbar auf dem romischen Kaiserthrone, Preuss. Jahrb. lvi,
1885, p. 267 (~ Populare Schriften, Berlin, 1898, p. 191).
Townsend, P. W. Chronology of the Tear 238 a.d. Yale Class. Stud, i, 1928, p. 231,
— ~ The Administration of Gordian III, Ib. iv, 1934, p. 59.
UUborn, G. Art. s.v. Maximinus Thrax in Realencyklop. fur protest. Theologie,
vol. p. 456.
Van Sickle, C. E. A hypothetical chronology for the year of the Gordians, C.P. xxii,
1927, p. 416.
Borne further observations on the chronology of the year 238 a.d. Ib. xxiv, 1929,
p. 285.
Arts, in P.W. s,vv, Antonius (60-62) Gordianus (von Rohden): Caeciiia
Paulina (Caecilius 138), Caelius (20) Calvinus Balbinus, Clodius (50) Pupienus
Maximus, and Furius (89) Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus (A. Stein); lulius (526)
Verus Maximinus and lulius (527) Verus Maximus (Hohl): and Magnus (i)
(Fluss).
if) Philip the Arabian
Stein, E. Art. in P.W. s.v. lulius (386/7) Philippus,
UhHiorn, G. and F. Gorres. Art. s.v. Philippus Arabs in Realencyklop. fiir protest.
Theologie, vol. xv®, p. 331.
See also the various articles in the two new volumes of the second edition of PJ.R.
by E. Groag and A. Stein.
738
BIBLIOGRAPHy
CHAPTER ill
THE BARBARIAN BACKGROUND
L ' General Works
{a) , Tile ■ geograpliical background: F. Grenard, La Haute Jsk (voL vin,
pp. 25 5-379, of GiagrapMe unmersiik^t^lQd by P.. Vidal dela Blacheand L. Gallois),
Paris, 1929; A. Stein, Geography as a factor in history^ Geogr, Journal, lxv, 1925,
p. 377 * . / ,
^ if) The historical background : L. Gahuii, Introiuctton a Pkhtoire ie PAsle^
Paris, 1896 (to be used with caution);, L, Halplien, Les Barkzres^ de$ gramks
invasions aux con^uiiis turques du XP sieck (to!, v oi Peupies et Chilisaiions)^ Paris,
1926; ed. 3, revised and enlarged, 1936; E. H. Parker, .// ikousand years of the
Tartars, ed. 2, London, 1924; P, Pelliot, La Haute Ask, Paris, 1931*
IL Archaeology
(<2) Genera!
Andersson, J. G. Der PFeg iiSer die Steppen. Museum of Far Eastern .Antiquities,
Stockholm, I, 1929, p, 152.
Borovka, G. Scythian Art (trans, by V. G. Childe). London, 1928,
Janse, O. Rev. des aits asiatiqties, ix, 1935, p. 9.
Rostovtzeff, .M. Uart greco-sarmate ei Part chimis de Pipofue des Han,, Aretjiiise,
April, 1924, p. 81.
The animal style in South Russia and China, Princeton,. N.J., 19,29.
Le centre de PAsk, la Russie, ia Chine et k style aztimaP Senii.ii* Konda-
kovianum, Prague, 1929.
(h) Russia
Ebert, M. Sudrussiand in Aliertmn, Bonn— Leipzig, 1921,
Minns, E, H., d’t’y/iM/rx.tf Tg’df G/wix. .'Cambridge, 1913;
Rostovtzeil) M, Iranians and Greeh in South Russia, Oxford, 1922.
Une trouvaille de Plpoque grico-sarmaie de Kerick, Mon. et Mem. Fiot,
XXVI, 1923, pp. 99 Iff.
Skytkien und der Bosporus, i, Berlin, 1931.
Schmidt, A. V. Kacka. Beitrage zur Erforschung der Kuiiuren Osirussiands in rkr
Zeit der Foikerwanderurtg (iii-v jahrh.), Eurasia septentrionalis ariliqua, 1,
X927,p. 18.
Tallgren, A. M. Etudes archiokgi^ues .sur la Russk orkniak durant Panckn age du
fer, Ib. VII, 1932, p. 7.
Collection Zaoussai’lop au Musie de Finlande a Helsingfors, Helsingfors, vol. i
(Catalogue raisonne de la collection de Page du bronze), 1916; vol 11 (Moiio-
graphies de la section du Page dn fer de Fdpoque de Bolgary), 1918.
Tolstoi, J., Kondakov, N* and S. Reinach. Antifuitis de ia Russk miridknak, Paris,
1891.
(<r) Siberia
Adrianov, A. Has Martjanmscke Staatmuseum in Minussimk, (Text in Russian.)
Minusinsk, 1924,
Heikel, A. Antiquitis de la BlMrie oeetdeniak, Helsingfors, 1894.
Martin, T. R. Uige du bronze m Musk de MimussmsL Stockholm, 1 893,
739
TO CHAPTER III
yon Meriiart, G. Bronz.ez.eit am JenisseL "Vienna, 1926,
Radloff, W. Siberian antiquities. Materials for tke arcliaeology of Russia, vols. in,
V, XV and xxvii, St Petersburg, 1888, 1891, 1894 and 1902.
Salmony, A. Sino- Siberian Art in the Collection of C. T. Paris, 1923.
Tallgren, A. M. Collection Tovostine, Antiquitis prihistoriques de Mutoussinsk,
Helsingfors, 1917.
Inner- Asiatic a 7 id Eur. septent ant. viii, 1933, p. 175.
(d) Mongolia
Borovka, G. Compte- 7 'endu pour T exploration du nord de la Mongolie, (Text in Russian.)
. Leningrad, 1925.
Heikel, A. AltertUmer aus dem Thale des Talas im Turkestan, Societe finno-ougrienne,
Travaux etKnograpHques, IV, Helsingfors, 1918.
von Takacs, Z. Chine sisck-hunnische Kunstformen. Sofia, 1925.
— — — Francis Hop memorial exhibition 1933 *. the ai't of Greater Asia, Budapest, 1933.
Werner, J. 2 ,ur S tel lung der Ordosbronzen. Eur. septent. ant. ix (Minns volume),
■1934, p. 259.-
III. The Huns and their Relations with China
Brockelmann, C. Folkskundliches aus Altturkestan, Asia Major, ii, 1925, p. iio.
Ciiavannes, E. Documents sur les T'ou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux, St Petersburg,
1903.
■ Notes additionnelles sur les T^ou-Kiue occide?itaux. T’oung Pao, v, 1904,
pp. i-r 10.
• — — Les pays d^ Occident dApres le Wei lio. Ib. vi, 1905, pp. 519-571.
Trois gdndraux chbiois de la dynastie des Han, Ib. vii, 1906, pp. 210-269.
Les pays d^ Occident d'apres le Heou Han Cliou. Ib. viii, 1907, pp. 149-234.
Chih Louh Kouoh Kiang Tuh Tchi. Histoire giograpkique des xvi royaumes fondis
en Chine par les Tartares. (French trans. by A, Des Michels.) Paris, 1891.
De Groot, J. J. M. Die Hunnen der mrchristlichen T^eiten, Chinesische TJrkunden zur
Geschichte Asiens, i, Berlin — Leipzig, 1921. (Compare a revie-w by M. O,
Franke in Ostasiaiische Zeits, 1930-21, p. 144, and an article by E. von Zach,
Einige Ferbesserungen zu De Groot ^ Asia Major, i, 1924, p. 125.)
Die Westlande Chinas in der mrchristlichen Zeiten. Chinesische Urkunden,
n, 1926.
Franke, M. O. Beitrdge aus ckinesiscken ^ellen zur Kenntniss der Turkenmlker
und Sky then Zentralasiens. Berlin, 1904.
Herrmann, A. Die Gobi im Zeitalter der Hunen-Herrschaft, Geografiska Annalen
(Sven Hedin volume), 1935, Stockholm, pp. 130-143.
Die Hephthaliten und ihre Beziehungen zu China, Asia Major, ii, 1925,
pp. 564—580.
Inostranzev, K. A. Hunnu and Huns: analysis of the theories of the origin of the
Hunnu people of Chinese annals aiid of the European Huns, London, 1926.
Jamsheji Modi. Early history of the Huns and their Inroads in India and Persia,
Journal Bombay Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc. 19x7, p. 539.
Marquart, J. Erdnsakr nack der Geographic des Ps,-Moses XorenacH, Berlin, 1901.
Osteuropdische U7td ostasiatische StreifzUge, Leipzig, 1903.
Pelliot, P. Uorigine de T^ou-kiue. T’oung Pao, xvi, 1915, pp. 687-689,
Radloff, W. Altturkische Inschriften der Mongoiei, St Petersburg, 1894-99.
Shiratori, K. Ueber den Wusunstamm in Centralasien, Keleti Szemle, in, Budapest,
1902.
' ^.BIBLIOGRAPHY; ,
SMratori, K, . Bur "fmgine 4es Himg-mu. : Joum. As.iatiqi2e, ccii, 1923,, p. 71,
•— On tkJitiis Kim md Ksgim, . Proc. of the Acad, (of Japan), Tokyo,
ii, 1926, pp. 241-4.
— On tie territory of tie Hsmng-m prince Hsiu-du-wmg md 'Ms metai statues
■for ieamn mrskip. Mem. of the Research Department of the Toyo .Bimko,
v, Tokyo, 1930.
Thomsen, V. Les inscriptions ie rOrkhon iechiffries, Mem. de la Socffimio-
OBgrienne, V, Helsingfors, 1896.
Torii, R. and K. Populatmis primitives de la Mongoiie orleniak. . 'jornml "ColL
Scknce, Imp. Univ. of Tokyo, xxxyi, 1913-15, art. 4.
IV. The Tarim Basin
Gronsset, R. U Iran exterkur. Son art. Cahiers 'de .la Soc. d. Et. Iraniennes de
Paris, Cahier no. 2, Paris, iqj'i.
Herrmann, A. Die al ten Seldenstrassen zvsiscken China' und Byrkn. Berlin, 1910'
(Qnellen und Porschongeii 20.r alten Gesch. u. Geogr., Heft 21).
Dk Verkehrsteege zwischen China, Indkn und Rom um 100 n. Chr. Qeb.
Leipzig, 1922.
von Le Coq, A. Biider atlas zur Kunst- und Kulturgesckkkte Miiteiaskm, Berlin,
1925. .
■ — - — Buried treasures of Chinese Turkestan. London, 1928.
Die Buddhistiscke Spdtantike in Mittelaskn. 7 vols. Berlin, 1922-31.
Levi, S. Le mkharkn B, iangue de Koutcha. Jonra. Asiatiqne, ii, (nth Ser.), 1913,
.
Fragments de textes koutchiens. (Cahiers de la Societe asiatiqne.) Paris, 1933.
PeBiot, P. Tokharkn et koutchien. Journ. Asiatiqne, ccxxiv, 1934, p. 23.
Sieg, E. and W. Siegliiig. Tocharlsche Qrammatik. Gottingen, 1931.
Stein, (Sir) A. Band-hurled ruins of Khotan. 2 vols. Oxford, 1907.
Berindia.. 5 vols. Oxford, 1921.
Innermost Asia. 2 vols. Oxford, 1932.
On ancient Central-Asian tracks. London, 1933.
Waldschmidt, E. Gandhdra, Kuiscka, Turf an. Leipzig, 1925.
. V. China AND ITS' Relations-; WITH THE Hohs.:
Pranke, . 0 . .M. GescMckte des chi nesisden Reiches. Berlin, i :(to. the ;end-. of the Han),
1930; II (from the end of the Han to the end of the T’ang), 1936.
Gronsset, R. Hisioire de T Extreme-Orient. 2 vois. Paris, 1929.
Wieger, le Rev. Pte. Textes Msiorifues. Rd. 3, vol. 1, Shanghai, t 93 6..
TO CHAPTER IV
741
CHAPTER IV .
SASSANID PERSIA
SECTIONS I~V
L , Ancient Sources
A. Greek and Roman
Tlie notices in classical authors such as Dio Cassius, Herodian, Dexippus, Tre-
bellius Pollio, Lactantius, Vopiscus, Eusebius, Rufinus, and Aurelius Victor deal
mainly with the political contacts of Iran with Rome. Ammianus Mar cellinus supplies
some information about the military and administrative organization of the Sassanid
Empire. A summary of the history of the Sassanid dynasty is to be found in Agathias,
book n. ■ ■
For religion see especially C. Clemen, Fontes Historiae Religionis Persicae^ Bonn,
1920.
B. Syrian
The Chronicle of Arbela. For editions and commentaries see the Bibliography
to chapter iii of volume xi, p. 877,
Acts of the Persian Martyrs. Jcta Sanctorum Martyrum^ ed. St. Assemanus,
vol. I, Rome, 1748; P. Bedjan, Acta Mariyrum et Sanctorum^ vols. ii and iv,
Paris, 1891, 1894; G. Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syrischen Akten persiscker
Martyrery Leipzig, 1880. (Abh. f. die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vii, 3.)
C. Armenian
Faustus of Byzantium. Ed. Ch. Patkanian, St Petersburg, 1883; French trans.
in V. Langlois, Collection des historiens ancient et modernes de P Arm inie, !
vol. I, Paris, 1867, pp. 209 sqq,\ Des Faustus von Byzanz, Gesckichte [
ArmenienSy libers, von M. Lauer, Cologne, 1879. j
For religious history: ;
Eznik of Kolb. The Venice edition, reprint of 1914; French trans. by Le Vaillant I
de Florival, Paris, 1853; V. Langlois, op. cit. ii, pp. 375 Eznik, Wider \
die Sekteny tibers. von J. M. Schmid, Vienna, 1900; L. Maries, Le De Deo I
Eznik de Kolby Paris, 1924. ;
Elisaeus Vardapet. Ed. by X. Hovhaniseang, Moscow, 1892; Michael P’orthugal, |
Venice, 1903; V. Langlois, op. cit. n, pp. 177/77.; N^^^ses Akinian, |
Elisaus Vardapet und seine Gesckichte des Armenischen KriegeSy i-n, Vienna,
I932“6 (in Armenian, with German resume). ;
Lazarus of Pharp. Critical edition by G. Ter-Mkrtitschian and S. Malchassian, '
Tiflis, 1904; V. Langlois, op. cit. n, pp. 259 sqq, j
D. The Iranian Tradition "i
Both the Pahlavi Khvadhaynamagh Q Book of Kings’), composed towards the end ^
of the Sassanian era, and the Arabic translations and adaptations, of which the most ■
famous was the work of Ibn-el-Moqaffa‘ (died c. a.d. y6o)y have perished. But these j
Arabic translations formed the chief source for the summaries of ancient Iranian |
i
742 BIBLIOGRAPHY
history that are still to be found in the Arab' chronicles (such as tliose of Ya^qubl,
Ibii C^itciba, Eutychiiis, Dlnawarl, Tabari, Hamza of Ispahan, Ta^aiibi,
and Birnni) and in tlie Persian (the SM.lmIineii of Fiidausf, the IhlrsnSmeli, and the
Mojmiluh-tawEriHi). A short Pahkid- Hstorical romance, of which the text survives,
the Karnamagh (‘Book of Great Deeds’) ■■of.Ardashir Pabliagan, is a mixture of
historical fact and older legends, among- which' ...several features of the legendary
history of Cyrus the Great are recognizable. -.Nearly all the details of the political and
organizing work of Ardashir supplied by o'nr Persian and Arab sources derive iroiri
Pahlavi works of the sixth century; these really describe . institutions in the time of
Chosroes I, but try to enhance their, credit by attributing, them to the foonder of the
dynasty; see A. Christensen, Les gesies ies rm dans li$ traditions ie ti Imn
Paris, 1936, chap. iii.
E. Inscrifttmst 'CQimi Bmh:
{d) Inscflftkns
Some of the investiture-reliefs {eg. 'those'of Ardashir I, of Sliapiir J, and that nf
Vahram I which Narses annexed) bear .inscriptions indicating only tlie name, tlie
titles, and the genealogy of the king.
. inseriptioiis -cited in the chapter:
Sh. Shap. a bilingual inscription (in Sassanid Pahlaw and Arsacid Pahlavi) on a
monument erected at Shapur in honour of Shapur I, found b)' R. Gliirslirnan
in tlie French excavations of 1935-6. It furnishes important chronological
details, lixing the date of the accession of Ardashir I to the throiie of Persi?, that
of his coronation as Great King of Iran, and that of the coronation of Shapur L
A description of it by R. Ghirshman, with some remarks by A. Christensen,
will be found in the Rev. ies arts asiat. x, 1936, pp. 123-9.
Hjb. a bilingual inscription of Shapur I at Hajiabad. It gives an account of how the
Great King shot an arrow in front of a solemn gathering of the notables of the
empire. It was first published on pages 83-4 of Westergaard’s edition of the
Bundahlshn (Bundehs/i, iiber pkkm€us\ Havniae, 1851; text and translation
in E. Herzfeld, Faikuiiy pp. 87-9.
Kb. Z. An inscription containing 34 long lines in Sassanid Pah carved at the foot
of the building called the ‘Ka^ba of Zoroaster,’ which !i(?s in front of the cliffs
of Naqsh-e-Rostam in Persis. It was discovered, deep in the sand, by the
expedition sent out by the Chicago Oriental Institute, in 1936, headed by
Erich F, Schmidt- The first part of it, which is unfortunately seriously damaged,
contains a catalogue of towns and districts, above all in the western region of
, the empire. The remainder gives an account of the institution of fires and the
presentation of offerings for the souls of a large number of royal personages, princes
and others, of both sexes; they are named with their titles, beginning with
Prince Sassan, Kings Pabhagh and Shapur of Persis, and the King of Kings
Ardashir L M, Sprengling, of the University of Chicago, who has published
a preliminary report together with a provisional translation {Jmer. Jmrn, &f
Bern. Lang, and Lit. nni, no. 2, January, 1937), is inclined to date the composition
of it to the reign of Narses. In the opinion of the present writer, it should be
attributed to Shapur I; but any discussion of this topic would exceed the bounds
of this bibliography.
N. Rjb. Krt. and N. Rst. Krt. Two' inscriptions, at Naqsh-e-Rajab and Naqsli-e-*
Rostam respectively, in which the Mobadi Karier Hormizd gives an account of
his pious life and career of service to the empire under the reigns of Shapur I,
Hormizd I, Vahram I and Vahram II. -Text and provisional translation in
Herzfeld, pp. 89-^3.', '■ ' "
TO CHAPTER IV 743
Paik.^ The lengtliy inscription of Narses at Paikuli, to the North of Qasr-e-Shirin
in Kurdistan, was engraved on the stones of a square tower; this collapsed, and
the stones which remain were scattered on the ground. Herzfeld has tried to
arrange the fragments of this inscription in order; it contains the names and the
titles of client-kings and great nobles, and gives us a rough idea of the extent and
the boundaries of the empire at this period. Text, transcription, a provisional
translation into English, and vocabulary will be found in Herzfeld’s FdikuU,
I, pp. 84-102; photographsinVol.il.
{p) Coins, (The items are set out in chronological order.)
Mordtmann, A. D, A series of articles on Sassanid coins in the Zeits, d, deutsck,
morgenl, Ges: vols. vin, xii, xix and xxxiii.
Dorn, B. de monnaies snssanldes de feu le Lieutenant-Giniral J, de
St Petersburg, 1873.
Drouin, Oisermtionssuriesmonnaiesd ligendesenpeklm. Rev. Arch. 1 884 and 1885.
— Les iigendes des monnaies sassanides. Ih,
Paruck 'FmdiOn]eQ, D. ]. Sasanian Coins. Bombay, 1924. (Including 23 photo-
graphic plates, and a reproduction oi ^2 plates from Dorn’s book.)
Vasmer, R. Sassanian Coins in the Ermitage. Num. Chr, 1928, p. 249.
Herzfeld, E. Kushano-Sasanian Coins. Mem. of the Arch. Survey of India, no. 38,
1930; see also I, p. 35.
(r) Seals
Herzfeld, E. Paikuli, i, Berlin, 1924, pp. 74-82.
Horn, P. and G. Steindorff, Sassanidische Siegelsteine. 'BtiYm, 1891 (KonigL
Museen zu Berlin. Mitt, aus den orient. Sammlung, iv).
Justi, F. Beitrdge zur Erklarungder FehlewUSiegelinschriften. Zeitschr. d. deutsch.
morgenl. Ges. xlvi, pp. 280-90.
IL Modern Books and Monographs
Christensen, A. V Iran sous les Sassanides. Copenhagen— Paris, 1936. (Includes
political and social history, religion, laws, art and archaeology. All subjects dealt
with in the same author’s Uempb'e des Sassanides, 1907, will be found here in a
revised and up-to-date form.)
A. Political History
von Gutschmid, A. Geschickte Irans und seiner Nachbarldnder von Alexander dem
Grossen his zum Untergang der Arsadden. Tubingen, 1888.
Herzfeld, E. Paikuli. i, Berlin, 1924, pp. 35-51.
Justi, F. Geschickte Irans. Gi'undriss d. iran. Philologie, ii, Strassburg, 1896-1904.
Marquart (Markwart), J. Erdnsahr nach der Geographic des Ps. ■'Moses Xorenadi.
Berlin, 1901. Gdtt. Abh. 1901, no. 2.
J Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Eranshahr. Analecta Orientalia,
ed. by G. Messina, iii, Rome, 1931.
Noldeke, Th. TABARt. Geschickte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden.
Aus der arab. Chronik des Tabari ubersetzt, Leyden, 1879.
Taqizadeh, S. H. Some Chronological Data relating to the Sasanian Period. Bull,
of the School of Orient. Stud, ix, i, 1937, pp. 125-39.
B. Organisation : Social and Economic Conditions
Benveniste, E. Les classes sociales dans la tradition avestique. Journ. Asiatique,
ccxxi, ii, 1932, p. 1 17.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
744
Herrmann, A. Die aken Seidemfrassen zwisch^ C^im md Syrkw. Berlin, 1910*
(Quellen u. Forschnngen z«r alten Gesch.'ii. Geogr., Heft 21*)
Herzfeld, E. Paihli. Berlin, 1924. {GloBsaiy^ passim,)
— Oid-Iraman ^ Feerskip? Ball.' of tEe Sctioo! of Orient. Stud, viii, 1936,
P- 937 -
■liiostrantzev, K. A. Bassanian Siudks, .(GacaH.if.pide aTi{aa.);St.Petersbiirg, 1909.
Reinaud, M. Reiattons peliitpues et commerdaies de F empire a^'ec FJsk
orkntak, Paris, 1863.
Sdiaeder, H. H. Iranica, Gott ikbh. 1934^ no. lo,
— ~ Bin partkischr Tiiei Im S&gdiseken, Bull, of the School of Orient. Stud, vm,
1936, p. 737. . ^ ^ ^ ,
Streck, M. Seieuda und Ktesipkm, (Der alte Orient, xvi, 3-4.) Leipzig, 1917.
Tavadia, |. C. Bur saxpan, A Dimer Speech in Middk Persian, Journ. of the
K« R, Cama Orient, Inst, xxix, 1935.
The Pahlavi book of law, which has been the subject of studies by Chr. Bartho-
, iomae and by M,. A.Pagliaro, is concerned with the 'latest period of Sassaiiian history.
C. Religions
BenTeniste, .E. Le iimdgnage de Thi&dore bar Kmay sur k mromirlsme, Le Afonde
orient, xxt^, 1932, p. 170,
Christensen, , A. Msudes sur k xoroasirisme de la Perse anitfue, (Det Kgl. danske
Videnskabemes Selskabs filol.-hist. Aleddelelser, ,x?, 2.)
— - Jbarsam ei Tansar. .Acta Orientalia, vni, 1924, p. 8r.
exisii me religion. zurvanieeP ■ Le .Monde orient xr?, 1932, p. 69..
. Clemen, C. Die grkchischen uni lateinischen Nachrkkten uber die perstscke RiUghn*
Giessen, 1920.
Hoffmann, G. Auszuge aus syrischen A keen persischer Miriyrer, Leipzig, 1S80.
Jackson, A, V. Williams. Zoroastrian Btuiies, New York, 1928.
Labourt, J. Le christianisme dans V empire perse sons ia dynastie sassanide, Paris, 1 904.
Noldeke, Th. Byriscke Pokmik gegen die persische Religion, Festgruss an R. ¥, Roth,
Stuttgart, 1893, pp, 34 i-ff.
Nyberg, H. S. ^estkns de cosmogonie et de c&smohgk mazdienms, Journ. asiatique,
ccxiv/il, 1931, pp. I93-244' ■ . ^ ^ '■ ' ' ^ .
Pagliaro, A, Noies on the History of the Sacred Fires 0/ Zoroastrianism* Orient.
Studies in Honour of C. E. Pavry, Lond.o.n,.i933, pp, 373 Sff,
von Wcsendonk, O. G. Das Welthili der Irankr, Munich, 1933.
For literature on Manicheeism .see/the- Bibliography to chaps, xni-xv, section g^
P- 773 -
D* Art and Archaeolo^
Dieulafoy, M. Hart antipw de ia Perse, Vols. i— y, Paris, 1884--9.
Erdmann, K. Die sasanidischen Jagdschalen, Jahrb. der preuss. Kunstsammlimgen,
trn, pp. 193 rff,
Fkndin, E. and P. Coste. Voyage en Perse, Plates, yols, i-ii, Paris, 1843.
Herzfeld, E. Am Tormn Asien, Berlin, 1920.
^ ^ — ArchaoiogmheMiUeUungen aus Iran, i~yiii, Berlin, 1929-36.
Archaeological History of Iran, London, 1935.
Jackson, A. V. Williams. Persia Past and Present, New York, 1906.
de Morgan, J. Mission scientifique en Perse* Recherches arch^ologiques, Paris,
1 900-1 1.
Morgenstern, L. Bsthitiques d^ Orient et d^Ocddent, Paris, 1937.
Pope, A. U. A Survey of Persian Art, 'London-New York, 193 S,
745
^ ■ to. '"Chapter iv-
Rostovtzeff, M. Caravan Cities. Oxford, 1932.
Die Kunsi des alien Fersien. Berlin, 1922.
Sarre, Fr. and E. Herzfeld. Iraniscke Felsreliefs. Berlin, 1910.
— — ArckUoIogtsche Reise im Eufhrat'^ und Tigrisgebiet. 11, Berlin, 1920.
For excavations at Seleuceia-Ctesiphon see Ed. Meyer, in the Mitt. d. dents c ken
Orient-Gesellsckaft, no. 67, 1929; O. Reuther, Die deutsche Ktesiphon-Expedition
1928/29, Berlin, 1930; J. M. Upton in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum^
1932, pp. 188 Jff.; E. Kiihnel and O. Wachtsmuth, Die Ktesiphon-Expedition
1931-2, Berlin, 1933; J. Heinrich Schmidt, V expedition de Ctisiphon en 193 1-2,
Syria, xv, 1934, p. i.
SECTION VI. The Persian Wars WITH Rome
I. Ancient Sources
(A) Texts
Apart from the relevant passages in the continuous histories of Aurelius Victor,
the Epitome de Caesaribus, Eusebius, Eutropius, Malalas, Orosius, the Scriptores
Historiae Jtigustae, Georgius Syncellus, Zonaras and Zosimus, detailed reference
may be made here to more special sources:
Agathangelus. Chapters i-ni (Fr. trans. by V. Langlois) in F.H.G. voL v, 2, pp. 1 10—
22: 26/7: IV, 23/4: pp. 121 sq.*. pp. 2^6 sqq.
Agathias. ii (ed. B. G. Niebuhr, Bonn, 1828): Hist. Graeci Min. (ed. L. Dindorf),
11, pp. 224177. and 330^77.
Ammianus Marcellinus. xxiii, 5, 3 (ed. C. U. Clark).
Anonymus continuator Dionis. Frags, i, 3 {F.H.G. iv, pp. 192-3).
Michael Syrus. French trans. by V. Langlois, Venice, 1868, pp. 109-10.
Moses of Chorene. ii, 56, 67, 71, 76, 81. (Ital. trans. by the Armenian Mechitarist
monks of San Lazzaro, ed. 2, Venice, 1850.)
Oracula Si by Hina, xiii passim (ed. J. GefFcken).
Petrus Patricius. Frags. 8, 9, ii. F.H.G. iv, pp. 186-8: Hist. Graeci Min. i,
pp. 429-31.
Tabari. In Noldeke’s translation, pp. 1-42. (See II A above.)
(^Inscription
Dessau 8879. Cf. ib. 8878, note i = C.I.G. 1253, and O.G.I.S. 640.
II, Modern Works
Asdourian, P. Die poUtischen Beziekungen zwischen Armenien und Rom von 190 v.
Chr. bis n. Ckr. Venice, 1911, pp. 120-9.
Christensen, A. Ulran sous les Sassanides. Copenhagen-Paris, 1936, pp. 79-91;
213-20.
Ensslin, W. Die weltgeschicktliche Bedeutung der Kdmpfe zwischen Rom und Fersien.
N.J. f. Wiss. IV, 1928, p. 399.
Fluss, M. Art. in P.W. s.v. Sapor I.
von Gutschmid, A. Geschickte Irans. Tubingen, 1888, pp. 156-64,
Mommsen, Th. Romiscke Geschickte. Vol. v, pp. 419-33.
Noldeke, Th. Aufsdtze zur Persiscken Geschickte. Leipzig, 1887, pp. 86-94.
Art. in P.W. s.v. Artaxerxes (Ardaschir) L
Sykes, (Sir) P. A History of Persia. Vol. i, ed. 2, London, 1921, pp. 391-402.
Wickert, L. Art. in P.W. s.v. Licinius (173) Valerianus.
746
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTERS V AND VI
THE INVASIONS OF PEOPLES FROM THE RHINE .4ND THE BLACK
SEA: THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE (a.d. 249-27C)
A, Ancient Sources
(x) Texts
In addition to the continnoas narrative histories O'ther authors should be consulted:
among Roman writers Lactantius, Jordanes, andOrosias, the Chronographer of 354,
the Chmick of Jerome, and the of Cassiodoriis; among Byzantine writers
the Jnon^mus (ed. Sathas), Cedrenus,, Malalas, Leo , Grain maticos, and John of
Antioch. Special reference is made to the foilowiiig ;
CoJex Jusimianus, rec. P. Krueger, ed. 9, 'Berlin, 1915.
Cyprian, Opera^ ed. G. Hartel (Corpus Script. EccL Lat. jii, Vienna, 1 868-71 ,
Dexippus, fragments in F. Gr. Hist, ii, pp. 304 $fp
Dionysius of Alexandria, fragments in Eusebius, Hist.ecei. (ed. Schwartz), vi, vii,
Petrus Patriciiis, fragments in Cassius Dio' (ed. Boissevain), voL in, pp. 731 x/y.
and in E.f/.G. IV, pp. 187 xff.
'For the Christian literature see the Bibliography for chaps, xiif, xiv and xv.
(2) Critkism of tki Sources
■ . In addition to the works mentioned in the General Bibliography, v, a (p. 730) the
following should be consulted:
Alfdidi, , A. Das Problem Jes ^‘perweibikkiefF Kaisers Gaiiimus, Z.N. xxxvni,
1928, p. 156.
, Der Rechssireii ssxischn ier romisckest Kirch und dem Fereln der Popinmiu
Klio, XXXI, 1938, p. 249.
Hartke, W, De saecuH quarti ixeuntis klsimarum.scriptorl^^^^ qnmsskms. Diss.
■ Berlin, ,1932. • • •
Peter, H. Die romisckm sogenmnten ireissig Tyrannen. Sachs. Abh. xxvn, no. 6,
-1909.
Reitzenstein, R. Dk Nackrkhen uber den Tod Cyprians, S.B. der Heidelbergcr
Akad. Phil-hist. Kl. 1913, no, 14 (cf. G.G.A" X919, p, 205).
Schenk, A. (Graf von Stauffenberg), Dk rmisch KaisergescMcbte bei Makks,
Stuttgart, 1931,
(3) Coins^ Inscriptions^ Papyri
Alfdidi, A. Zur Entstebmgszek der staakkhn Mmzstdtte mFiminacium. Ninnizin,
Kozlony, xxxiv/v, 1938, p. 66.
— — Siscia. Budapest, voL 1, 1931, vol. 11, 1938,
Blanchet, A, Les trisors de momaks romaines et les invasions germanlques en Gmde^
Paris, 1900,
Les rapports entre ks dSp$ts monitaires et k$ hinemenis militaires^ poliiiqms ei
iconomiques, Paris, 1936.
Candneau, J, Invent aire des imcriptions de Palmyre^ Beyrouth, 1930-33.
Elmer, G. Dk Prdgmgen der gaUiscien' Bonder kaiser. B.J. 143, 1938.
Fiebigcr, O. and L. Schmidt. Inschrtftmsammhng xnr Gesckkhti der Osigermamn,
Wien. S.B. Phil.-hisL Kl 1917. '
TO CHAPTERS V and VI 747
Kubitschek, W. Die Munzen Regaiians und Dry antiIias, ]shit^\iekQ, ii, 1901,
pp. 210 xff. (c£ ib. BeibL p. loi and Num. Z. 1908, p, 127).
Markl, A. Die Reicksmunzstatten des Claudius II. Nunx. Z. xvi, 1884, p. i.
Das Promnziaicourant unter Claudius II Gothicus. Ib. xxxi, 1899, p. 319.
Die Reicksmunzstatten unter der Regierung des ^intUlus. Ib, xxii, 1 890,
Mattingty, VL.Tke Reign of Aemilian. A Chronological Note. J.R.S. xxv, 193 5> p. 5 5.
Moucbmoff, M. Le Trisor des monnaies de RIka-Demia. Soiia, 1934*
Pick, B. Die anti ken Miinzen Nordgrieckenlands. Vol. i (Dacien und Moesien).
Berlin, 1899. . " , '
Pink, B, Der Aufhau der rmiscken Munzpragung in der Kaiserzeit. IV. Von
Decius bis Aemilianus. Nnm. Z. nxix, 1936, p. ro.
Stein, A. Zu den Kaiserdaten in der Mine des III. Jakrhunderts. Laureae Aquin-
censes, Budapest, 1,938.'
Voetter, O. Die Miinzen des Kaisers Gallienus und seiner Familie. Num. Z. xxxii,
1900, p. 117; xxxni, 1901, p. 73.
B. Modern Works
(a) The Invasions
Aifoldi, A. Die Gotenbewegungen und die Aufgabe der Provinz Dacien. A contribu-
tion to ''Die Romer in Ungarn,’ to be published at Frankfurt in 1939.
Bang, M. Die Germanen Im romischen Dienst bis zum Regierungsa?ttritt Constantius L
Berlin, 1906.
Manley, 1 . J. Effects of the Germanic invasions on Gaul 234-284 a.d. Univ. of
Calif. PubL in History, XVII, no. 2, 1934, p. 25,
Norden, E. Alt-Ge 7 'manien. Volker- und namengeschichtUcke Untersuchungen.
Leipzig-Berlin, 1934.
Rappaport, Br. Die Einfalle der Goten in das romische Reich. Leipzig, 1899.
Schmidt, L. Ge sc hie hie der deutseken Sidmme bis zum Ausgang der Volkerwanderung.
I. Die Ostgermanen, ed. 2, Munich, 1934; II. Die Westgermanen, Pt. i,
ed. 2, Munich, 1938.
Art. in P.W. s.v. Carpi (Patsch).
{B) Emperors and Usurpers ^ from Decius to ^intillus
Apart from the relevant pages of the general histories see also :
Aifoldi, A. Die Besiegung eines Gegenkaisers im J. 263. Z.N. xl, 1930, p. i.
The Numbering of the Victories of Gallienus and of the Loyalty of his Legions.
Num. Chr. 1929, p. 218.
Die Hauptereignisse im romischen Osten zwischen 253 und 260 im Spiegel der
Munzpragungen. Berytus, iv, 1937 (1938), p. 53.
(A continuation of this study, to a.d. 270, is to appear in this periodical.)
Bernhardt, Th. Politische Geschichte des romischen Reiches von Valerian bis zu
Diode tians Regierungsantritt, Berlin, 1867.
Clermont-Ganneau, Ch. Odeinat etVaballat. Rev. biblique, xxix, 1920, p. 382.
Damerau, P. Kaiser Claudius II Goticus (268-270 n. Chr.). Klio, Beih. xxxiii,
^ 934 -
von Domaszewski, A. Die Rede des Aristides €k ^acnXia. Phil, lxv, 1906,
p. 344’
F^vrier, ]. G. Essai surPhistoire politique et iconemique de Palmyre. Pans, 1931.
748 /-BIBLIOGRAPHY ::
Homo, L. Ckuim 'G^tiks Rmm&mm imperntm. Paris, :x903. ■
— Lkmpermr GaiikM: 'it' ia crise di rimpin.rmam m IH^Sikk, ;'Rev.. H. cxiii,.
f9i3, pp.. .1 and' 225/
Arts, in vol.^i, no. 430 (Aemilianns);. voh ii,no.466(PosliiHiiis),aiici no, 1499
(Saionina), all by A. Stein.
Art in Diz. Epig. Dedns (Costa),
Arts, in P.W. s.pp, Fnlvins (82) ^Macrknns (A. Stein), Lidnius (173) Yalerianiis
(Wickert), Messiiis (10) Qnintns Traianus'Dedns (Wittig), Regalianns (A.
Stein), and.Sulpida (117) Dryantilla (Flnss).
(£•) Th Dedan Persecutim
(Texts are given first, and then modern works,). '
Knipfing, ]. R. The Lihlli qf the Dedan Persecutim. Harv. TlieoL Retn xvi, 1923,
p. 345. (Edition of Greek te'xt with English transl.)
Roasenda, P. Deck it UMiaikL BMaskaleion, N.S. v, 1927, p. 31. (Edits the
■ libelli.) , . ^ '
Blndan, A. ■ Die agyptlschen Liheiii and die Chrisienperfdgnng its Kaisers Diclus.
Rom. Qimrtalschrift, Snpplementheft xxvii. Freiburg i/B. 193 x. (German
translation of Libelli.)
BiMmejer, K, Die Christemerfolgung des Kaisers Decius. Theol. Quartalsdirift,
xcii, 1910, p. 19.
De Reglbns, L. Deck e ia crisi delf impero romam ne! Ill Secok. Didaskaleion,
;N.S. Ill, 1923, Fasc. 3, p. I.
Fanihaber, L. Die Libeill in der Chrisienmrfolgung des Kaisers Decius. Zeits. £
kath. Theologie, xun, 19x9, pp. 439, 617.
Foucart, P. Les certijicats de sacrifice pendant la persecution de Decks (250). J.d.
Sav. 1908, p, 169.
Fran chi de’ Cavalieri, P. Stndi e Testi, xix, p. 45 ; xxn, 1909, p. 77 with Appendices
ii and hi.
Liesering, E. Untersuchungen zur Christenverfoigung des Kaisers Decius, Diss.
Wurzburg, 1933.
Schoenaich, G. Die LibeUi uni ihre Bedeutung fur die Chrisienperfoigung des
Kaisers Deems. Wiss. Beitrage zum Jahresbericht des Kon* Friedrichs-Gym-
nasiums zu Breslau fiir 19x0. Breslau, 1910.
Die Ckristenperfolgung des Kaisers Deems. Jauer, 1907.
{d) The Krmy
Alfoldi, A. Der Usurpator Jureoius und die Kamikrkreform des Kaisers Gaiikms,
Z.N. xxxvn, X927, p. 198, and xxxviii, 1928, p. 200.
van Berchem, D. Uannone mill take dans P Empire romain an IIP stick. Mem.
de la Soc, nat. des Antiquaires de France, lxxx, 1937, p. 1x7.
Bifimlein, C. Berkht uber die Literatur zu den rom, KrkgsaltertUmen. Bursian,
ccxviii, p. 69, and ccxLvni, p. 148.
Cagnat, R. Darmie romain i^Afrique. Ed. 2, Paris, 1913.
Cantacuzdie, G. he reemtement de quelqms cohortes Byrknnes. Mus.B. xxxi, 1927,
p. 157.
~ — Un papyrus reiatif a la difense du B as Danube. Aeg, ix, 1928, p. 63.
Cheesman, G. L. The Auxiiia of tie Roman Imperiai Army. Oxford, 1914,
Christescu, V. Istoria miiitara a Dacki Romane. Bucarest, 1937.
Couissin, P. Les armes remains . Paris, X926.
von Domaszewski, A. Die Rangordnung des romiscken Heeres, B.J. 1 17, 1908, p. i,
Der Truppensaid der Kaiserzeit, Neue Heideib. Jahrb. x, 1900, p* 218.
Fabricius, E. Das romiscke Beer in Obergermanien und Raetkn. H.Z. xcviii, 1907,
■ ■
Grosse, R. Romiscke MUitargeschichte von GalUenus bis zum Beginn der byzantin--
iscken Tkemenverfassmg. BtiYm,
Kornemann, E, Die unsichtbaren Grenzen des romiscken Kaiserreickes, In ‘Staaten,
Vdlker, Manner/ Leipzig, 1934, pp. 96-116.
Darmie romaine d^Mgypte, QmOy 1(^1%.
Macdonald, Sir G. Tke Roman Wall in Scotland, 'Ei. 2, Oxford, 1934.
Mommsen, Tb. .Die Conscriptionsordnung der Kaiserzeit, Ges. Scliriften, vi,
PP-30 Jff. ''
romische Militdrwe sen seit Diocletian, Ib. vi, pp. 206 sqq,
Ritterling, E. Kastell Niederbieber, BJ. 120, 1911, p, 359.
------ Zum romiscken Heermesen des ausgekenden 111 , Jakrhunderts, Festschrift
Hirschfeid, 1903, pp, 345 ^77.
— ~ Zwei Munzfunde aus Niederbieber, BJ, 107, 1901, p. 95.
Seyrig, H. Armes et costumes iraniens de Palmyre. Syria, xviii, 1937, p. 4.
Stein, E. Die kaiserlichen Beamten und Truppenkorper im romiscken Deutsckland
unter dem Prinzipat. Vienna, 1932.
van de Weerd, H. and P, Lambrechts. Note sur les corps d^ archers au Haut-Empire,
Laureae Aquincenses, Budapest, 1938.
Arts, in F. W. s,vv. ala, cohors (Cichorius), exercitus (Liebenam), exploratores
(Fiebiger), legio (Ritterling), limes (Fabricius) and numerus (Rowell).
(e) Special Topics
Alfoldi, A. Die Ausgestaltung des monarckiscken Zeremoniells am romiscken Kaiser-
kofe, Rom. Mitt, xlix, 1934, p. 3.
Insignien und Tracht der romiscken Kaiser, Ib. l, 1935, p. 3.
Die Vorkerrsckaft der Pannonier im Romerreiche und die Reaktion des Hellen-
entums unter GalUenus, 25. Jahre Rom.-Germ. Kommission, 1930, p, 1 1.
Augustus als Vorbild des GalUenus, Z.N. xxxviii, 1928, p. 197,
The Tear-Reckoning of tke Reigns of Falerianus and GalUenus, J.R.S, xxxix,
1939 *
Die Ckristenverfolgungen in der Mitte des 111 , Jakrh, Klio, xxxi, 1 93 8, p, 3 23,
La grande crise du monde romain au IIP siecle, L’Antiquite Classique, vii,
1938, p. 5.
Baynes, N. H. Tke Effect of tke Edict of GalUenus, J.R.S. xv, 1925, p. 195.
von Domaszewski, A. Die Pompa an den Decennalien des GalUenus, Rh. Mus.
Lvii, 1902, p. 575.
Lambrechts, P. La composition du Sinat romain de Septime Sivere a DiocUtien,
Diss. Pann. Ser. I, fasc. 8, Budapest, 1937.
Seyrig, H. Note sur BNrodien, prince de Palmyre, Syria, xvin, 1937, p. i.
Stein, A. Tenagino Probus, Klio, xxix, 1936, p. 237,
Stein, E. Kleine Beitrage zur romiscken Gesckickte, Hermes, lii, 1917, p. 57.
75G
BIBLIOGRAPHY
' : , , : CHAPTER VII
rm ECONOMIC life of the empire
, h 'Ahcieot Sources
The literary sources now are secondary to the documentary, but among them
Aristides’ speech ER' 'Poj/av|j (xxvi, Kell), of a.d. 1 56, \rith Dio Chrysostom’s speeches
(as e.g. VII, ERioR'es) are important for the early and middle second century,
lierodiaii, book ?n, for the beginning of the third century, and pseudo-Aristides’
speech Ilk BvfnXm (xxxv, Kell), of a.d. 247 (c£ E, Groag, Wien. Stud, xt, 1918,
p. 37) for the period after Severns Alexander, while sources of the fourth or early
fifth century, such as the Exp&sith Toiius Mtmdi (Geogr. fat. min. ed. Ritse,
pp. io4ify.)aiid the Nofiiia dignitisium (cd. Seecfc, 1876), Llbaniiis’ speeches and
Ausonius, can be brought in to supplement them. In addition tfiere is a of
scattered notices in Arrian {Peripius Ponti Euxim\ Aristides, the geographer Ptolemy,
Dio Cassius and so on down to the Church Fathers, to Zosinios and Malalas. Nor
can we neglect the numerous observations in the Historia Jngusia^ in spite of their
doubtful value. Even foreign sources, such as the CMmse Jmmis published by
F. Hirth {China and the Roman Orkni^ Leipzig-Munich, 1 883), are of importitnee.
Far more valuable, however, is the immense and still not full}' exploited documen-
tary material: here we have sources from Roman law, e.g, book l of the Digest, but
above all Roman and Greek inscriptions: tliese contain not only documents of unique
value, such as the Edictum Diode tiani de pretiis (ed. Mommsen and Bliimner, Berlin,
1 893), but also such records as the Spanish Mine- Law of Vipasca (Dessau, 6891), the
African inscriptions (BrunsL 61 and 86), the Customs-tables of Coptos (O.G.LS.
674) and Palmyra ipb, 629), the huge mass of the Gallic inscriptions, and so on.
Equally important are the Egj'ptian papyri, which supply an immense ainounl of
information preciselyfor the economic history of the second and third centuries and for
the economic crisis of the third centur}' {eg. minutes of the to%vn-council of Oxyrhyn-
chus) : and to these can now be added tlxe parchments and papyri of Dura-Europus (see
below iiB, 3). Coins, too, by their differences in W’'eight and purit}’, mirror similar
changes in economic life, ■while the widely-scattered coin-finds outside the Empire
illustrate the great extent of commerce. Last, but not least, there is an Immense wealth
of archaeological material: this wealth, — whether it be African or German mosaics, the
monuments of Treves, villas in Gaul, Germany, and Britain, the magnificent new’ dis-
coveries at Dura, Gallo-German sculptures,remaiiisof buildings throughout the whole
empire, whether it be artistic or commercial products, found within or beyond the
boundaries of the empire,— in its totality gives a clear Impression of tlie economic
standards of the time.
Generally, see T. Frank, An Economic Burvey of ancient Rome^ section a b, 3.
IL Modern Works
This Bibliography is supplementary to that for Chapter xni of VoL x, given on
pp. 944—5 of that volume,
A. General
Apart from the relevant pages of the general histories cited in the General Biblio-
graphy, I, such as Besnier, Gibbon, Lot, Mommsen, and above all the works
of Friedlander-Wissowa and Rostovtzeff {Saciai mi Meonmte the following
works, additional to those given in Volume x, should be noted :
TO CHAPTER VII
751
I. Political and Social Conditions
Abbott, F. F. and A. C. Johnson. Municipal administration in the Roman Empire,
Princeton, N.J. 1926.
Biicher, K. Die Diokletianische Taxordnung vom Jahre 301. Zeits, f. d. ges.
Staatswiss. 1894, pp. 189 and 672. (« Beitrage zur "Wirtschaftsgeschichte,
pp. 179/77. Tubingen, 1922.)
Buckler, W. H. Labour disputes in the Promnce of Asia Minor, Anatolian Studies
presented to Sir William Pamsay, Manchester, 1923, pp, 27 sq^,
Ciccolti, La cwilta del mondo antico, 2 vols. Udine, 1935. (The last chapter,
^Ml croilo deir Impero e della cimlta anticaf has been printed in Nuova
Delbruck, H. Gesckichte der Kriegskunst, Vol. ii, ed. 2. Berlin, 1921.
Gelzer, M, Studien %ur hyzantinischen Ferwaltung A’gyptens, Diss. Leipzig, 1909.
Altertumswissenschaft und Spdtantike, H.X, cxxxv, 1926, p. 173.
Groag, E. Collegien und Zwangsgenossenschaften im 3. J akrhundert, Vierteljahrschr.
f. Soz.- u. Wirtsch.-Gesch, 1904, p. 481.
Grosse, R. Romische Militdrgeschichte von Gallienus bis zum Beginn der byzanti^
nischen T hemenverfassung, Berlin, 1920.
Hartmann, L. M. Der Untergang der anti ken Welt, Weltgeschichte in gemein-
verstandlicher Darstellung, Vol. iii, ed. 2, Gotha, 1921, pp. 201 sqq,
Hasebroek, J. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Septimius Severus,
Heidelberg, 1921.
Heitland, W. E. Last words on the Roman municipalities, Cambridge, 1928.
Hirschfeld, O. Die kaiserlichen Verwaltu 7 igsbeamten. Ed. 2, Berlin, 1905.
■— — Die Sicherheitspolizei im romischen Kaiserreich, KLleine Schriften, Berlin,
^913? PP*
Die dgyptische Polizei der romischen Kaiserzeit nach Papyrusurkunden^
Ib. pp. 613 sqq,
Die agentes in rebus, Ib. pp. 624 sqq.
Kornemann, E. Staat und Wirtschaft im Altertum, Schriften der Industrie- u.
Handelskammer, Breslau, Heft 13, 1929.
Das Problem des Untergangs der antiken Welt, Vergangenheit u. Gegenwart,
xii, 1922, pp. 193 and 241.
Kreller, H. Lex Rhodia, Untersuchungen zur ^ellengeschichte des romischen
Seerechtes, Zeits. f. d. ges. Plandels-Recht u. Konkursrecht, lxxxv, 1921,9. 257.
Laum, B. Stiftungen in der grie chi sc hen und romischen Antike, 2 vols, Leipzig, 1914.
Liebenam, W. Stddteverwaltung im romischen Kaiserreiche, Leipzig, 1900.
Martroye, F. Les patronages d'agriculteurs et de vici au et au P siecles. Rev.
Iiist. de droit fran^. et (Stranger, iv® Ser., vii, 1928, p. 201.
Oertel, F. Die Liturgie, Studien zur ptolemdischen und kaiserlichen Ferwaltung
Agyptens, Leipzig, 1917. (Cf. J. Partsch, Arch. Pap. vir, p. 264.)
RostovtzelF, M. Studien zur Geschichte des romischen Kolonates, Leipzig, 1910.
— — Geschichte der Staaispacht in der romischen Kaiserzeit bis Diokletian, Leipzig,
1902.
Schonbauer, E. Reicksrecht gegen FolksrechtP Studien Uber die Bedeutung der Const,
Anton, fur die romische Rechtsentwicklung, Z.d. Sav.-Stift. Li, 1931, p. 277.
Stade, K. Der Politiker Diokletian und die letzte grosse Christenverfolgung,
Diss, Frankfurt a.M., Wiesbaden, 1926.
Vinogradoff, P. Social and economic conditions of the Roman Empire in the fourth
century, Cambridge Medieval History, i, 191 1, pp, 543 sqq, (with bibliography,
pp. 688
752 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nninerous articles in P.W* e,g. i.m/ BanernstaBd (Koriieoiann), Berufsvereine
(Stockle), colleginm (Korneimnn),.coIanatosXSeeck), cnratores (Komemann)^
Domitks (36) L, Rscm (Rostovtzeff), fromentarii
(Fiebiger), legio (Ritterling-Kubltschek), res privata (Liebenam), Severus
(l3)-Septiinins SevernSj SMayerei (Westexmmn), and x 4 rt* j.e?* Escus in Diz,
Epig* (Rostoytzeff).
z, Geuerai Economic History '
Brentano, L. Das Wirtsckafiskbrn der antiken WelL Voriesimgenj Jena^ 1929.
Ciccottij 11 frobkma ecrmomko nei mondo antko. Nuoya Rivista Storica, xvi^ ^932,
pp„ 1-51, 145-187. ^ ^ ^ ^ .. ^
Dopschj A. Haturakcirisckaft und Geldzcirtsckaft in der WkiigescMckii.
1930.
Heicheilieimy F. IVeltMsioriscAe Geskktspunkte %u den mrmiiteiaitiriicken flirt-
sckaftsepocken. Schmollers Jahrb. lvi, 1933, p. 994*
Heitland, W. E. Jgrkoia. Cambridge, 1921.
Rostovtzeff, M. Th decay of ike ancient world and its economic explanation. Econ,
Hist. Reyiew, II, 1930, p. 197.
Salyioli, G. li capitalismo antico. Bari, 1929.
Weber, M. Die soziakn Grilnde des Untergangs der anti ken Ktiliur. *®Die Wahr-
beit,” I. Maibeft, 1896 (=« Gesammelte Aufsatze z. Soz.- nnd Wirtscliafts-
Gesdiicbte, Tnbingeii, 1924, pp, 289 rff.). , ,
JgrarperMitnisse im /liter turn. Handworterbncb der Staatswissenscbaften, 1,
ed. 3, 1909 ~ Ges. Aufs. pp. I rff.
West, L. C. Th economic collapse of the Roman Empire* CJ. 1932/33, p. 96.
Numerous articles in P.W. e,g. i.ot. KapitaHsmns (Sigwart), KarteE.(Rwbitscliek),
Landwirtscbaft (Ortb), naviaikrii (Stoclde), Industrie nnd Handel (Gnmmeras).
B. SPECIAL' 'Topics
.1. Ramifications of jlgricuiture^ Industry f Trade md Commerce ■ . • •
Bolin, St* Fynden av romerska mynt i det fria German kn* Lnnd, 1926.
Die Funde romischr und byzantiniscier Munz£n im frekn Germankn. Rom*-
German. Commission 1929 (1930), p. 86.
Brogan, O. Trade between th Roman Empire and th free Germans. J.R.S, xxvi,
1936,?, 195.
EIcboIm, G* Zur GescMche des rdmischgermantschn Handeh* Acta arclmcoL vi,
1 935 ^ P* 49 -
— — Die Einfnhr mn Bronz/scMssdn der rmuchn und frubmerowingischw Zdt
nach Bkaniinmkn. Altschlesien,- y, 1934, p, 247.
(On Ekboim’s work see H. J. Eggers, 'Germania^ xx, 1936, p. 146.)
Gum, merus, H. Der romisch Gutsbetrieb ais wirtsckafiikhr Organkmus nacb den
Werken des Cato^ Farro und Columella* -Leipzig, 1906.
Herrmann, A. Die Beidenstrassen vom alten China nmk im romhchen Rekh*
Mitt* der Geogr. Ges. in Wien, mn, 1915, p. 472.
— — Die Ferhkrswige zwisehn Ckina^ Jndien und Rom um too n* Cin.GtfA,
Leipzig, 1922.
Kortenbentd, H. Der agyptisch Bud- und Ostkande! in der Poikik der Pioiemaer
md rMisckn Kaiser* Diss. Berlin, ,1931.
Persson, A W. Btaat mi Manufaktur im romisckn Reich* Lnnd, 1923.
' Rostovtzeff, M* Caravan Cities*. Oxford, 1932. (Conteins a good bibliography.)
TO CHAPTER VII 753
Schaal, H. Flusssckijfahrt und Flusshandel im Altertum. Festsclir, 400 Jalir-Feier
Alt. Gymn. Bremen, 1928, p. 370.
Schonbauer, E. Beitrage zur Geschichte des Berghaurechts* Muncliener Beitr. 2.
Pap.-Forschg. u. ant. Reclitsgesch., 12. Heft, Municii, 1929.
Westermann, W. L. On inland transportation and communication in Antiquity,
Polit. Sc. Quart, xliii, 1928, p. 364.
Numerous articles in P.W. e.g. Domanen (Kornemann), fabricenses (Seeck),
frumentum (Rostovtzeff),
2. Monetary Policy. Prices
BAiAoTs^ 'E.^Traiti des monnaies grecques et romaines, Vol. i, Paris, 1901.
Bernhart, M. Randbuch zur MUnzkunde der romiscken Kaiserzeit. Halle, 1926.
Giesecke, W. Antikes Geldwesen. Leipzig, 1938.
Heicliellieim, F. Xu Pap, Bad. 'yq^ ein Beitr ag zur romischen Geldgeschichte unter
Trajan. Klio, xxv, 1932, p. 124.
^^■Zur Wdhrungskrisis des romischen Imperiums im 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Klio,
XXVI, 1933, p. 96.
New light on currency and inflation in Hellenistic-Roman times. Economic
History, ni, 10, February 1935.
Johnson, A. C. Notes on Egyptian coins. A.J,A. xxxvin, 1934, p. 49.
Kubitschek, W. Der G bergang mn der vordiokletianischen Wahrung ins Jahr»
Randbemerkungen zu Schriften von G. Mickwitz. Byzant. Zeits.
XXXV, 1935, p. 340.
Mattingly, H. Roman Coins. London, 1928 (vuth bibliography). Book n (The
Empire: Augustus to Diocletian) and Book iii (The Empire: Diocletian to
Romulus Augustulus). And see bibliography to Chap. ix.
Mickwitz, G. Geld und Wirtschaft im romischen Reich des 4. Jahrhunderts n.
Chr. Soc. scient Fennica. Comment, human, litt. iv, 2, Helsingfors, 1932.
Bin Goldwertindex der romisch-byzantinischen Zeit. Aeg. xin, 1933, p. 95.
Le probleme de For dans le mo?ide antique. Ann, d’hist. econ. et soc. vi, 1934,
pp. 239 sqq.
Die Systeme des romischen Silbergeldes im 4. Jahrh. n. Chr. Soc. scient
Fennica. Comment, human, litt. vi, 2, Helsingfors, 1935.
Regling, K. MUnzkunde. In Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft^ hrsg. von
A. Gercke und E. Norden, Bd. ii, ii, ed. 4. Leipzig, 1930.
Segre, A. Kaooi^ lojatcr/^ta, Atti Acc. Line, xvi, 1920, p. 4*
Circolazione monetaria e prezzi nel mondo antico ed in particolare in Egitto.
Rome, 1922.
Metrologia e circolazione monetaria degli antichi. Bologna, 1928.
Circolazione e inflazione nel mondo antko. Historia, 1929, p. 369.
Numerous articles in P.W. e.g. s.vv. foliis (Seeck), Munzkunde (Regling)
3. Particular areas
(Supplementary to those given in VoL x, p. 945,) For the relevant works for the
several provinces in the period of that Volume, see the Bibliographies to chapters
xii-xvi of Vol, XI, pp. 903 sqq. (including a reference back, for Egypt, to Vol. x,
pp. 922 sqql). To these may be added the great work edited by Tenney Frank,
An economic survey of ancient Rome. VoL ii: Johnson, A. C., Roman Egypt (with
Bibliography), Baltimore, 1936. Vol. in: ColHngwood, R. G., Roman Britain (and
see Bibliography to Chap. viii). van Nostrand, ].],^Roman Spain (with Bibliography).
Scramuzza, V. M., Roman Sicily (with Bibliography). Grenier, A., La Gaule
4 $
c.A,H. xri
BIBLIOGRAPHY
754
Romaine. Baltimore, 1937. VoL ivt Haywood, R M., Hekhellieim,
Fn Roman Syria (with Bibliography). Larsea, J. A. O., Rmm Greea (with Bifalio-
grapby). Broughton, T. R. S., Roman Jsia. Baltimore, 193 — See also:
Aubin, H. DkwirisckaftikkeEntwkkeiungdes r&mtschnDmtsckianis. H.Z. 141,
1950, p. I.
Bell, H. L Th iyzan tine semi k state in Bg^pL ]..E. A. iv, 1917, jx 86*
Btomlein, C. Romer und Germanm, BiHer aus dem romiscli-germanisclieri Knltur-
leben. Munich, 1926.
Colin,]. Les antiquitis Tomaines ie !a Rhinanie, Paris, 1927.
Daicovici, C. La Transyhank dans'Bantiquite, Bucarest, !938.
Dura. For the excavations at Dura se€:F. Cumont, Fmdiles de Doura-Etiropm
(1922-1923), Paris, 1926, and tlie-six Preiminary Reports on the excavations
, from 1928 to 1933, edited by ■ Baur, , Bellinger, Hopkins, Rostovtzeff and
Welles: VoL vi, New Haven, Conn, 1936. ' .
Frank, T. Th people of Ostia, C.J.'xxix, 1933/34, p. 481.
Gnirs, A. Forschngen iikr anti hn FilknSau in Stidistrien. Jahresh. xviii, 1915,
Beiblatt, p. loi.
Hertlein, Fr., 0 . Paret and P. Goessler. Die Romer in Wriirttemhrg, 3 vols, Stutt-
gart, 192 8-3 2.
Jullian,. C, Hisioin de la Gauk. Vol. vii, Paris, 1926; voL vni, Paris, 1926*
Kromayer, J. Die mrisckaftikke Entwkkelung ItaUem im 2. und 1, Jahrkmdert t\
Cir. NJ.KLAlt xxxiii, 1914, p* 145.
Ledroit, J, Die romisch ScBffakrt im SiromgeMet des Rkeines, KuitiirgescliichtL
Wegweiser durch das rdm.-gerin. Zentralmnseum JsV. 12, Mainz, 1930.
Martin, V, Les papyrus et rMstotre administraiwe de Pigypte grko-rommm. Papyri
und Altertniiiswisseiischaft, Munich,, 1934,^ pp, 102 iff, ■
fscalit/ romaine en£gypte aux trois premiers sikks de Empire, Biscours
: Geneve' 192 sAGeneva,:- 1926^:^' ’
Odtmun^'E:,r.Rdmis€h/'Fiiienim Rkemiand,/f,D',Al, ■
O^Ttd^ E,:::Der Nk^ Kuitur in J'gypien, N,J..KLAJt
XLY, 1920, p. 361.
Rostovtzeff,. M. Franians^ and: Greeks in Souik Russia, Oxford, 1922. ,
Schumacher,: md KuIturgeseMcFte der Rkeiniande, Vol,.n, Die-
■ Tomische' Periode'.;' Mainz,' 1923. . ■
Stahelin, F. Die Schveisc in romischer Zeit Ed. 2, Basel, 1931.
Wagner, F. Die Romer in Bayern, Ed. 4, Munich, 1928.
Wenger, in J^gqpten am Jusgang der RomerherrsekafL 'Festrede
Mianchen, 1922,
West, L. C, (besides Roman Gaul,- Imperial Roman Spain; 'c£ C-A-.H* xi). ^ Roman)'
Britain, The objects of trade. Oxford, 1931.
Phases of commercial life in Roman Egypt, J.R.S. vn, 1917, p. 43.
TO CHAPTER VIII
755
CHAPTER VIII
BRITAIN
A. Ancient Sources
The evidence from tlie literary sources is not large: it has been collected in Monu^-
menta Historka Britannica^ Yoh 1
The inscriptions were collected by E. Hubner in vol. yii oiCJ.L. Supplements
and additions to tills were published by Hubner in Epk. Epig,Yoh. iii and iv, and
by F. Haverfield, ii). vols. vii and ix. A new Corpus of the inscriptions, edited by
R. G. Gollingwood, is in preparation. Since 1921 an annual report upon Roman
Britain, summarizing the results of excavations and publishing the new inscriptions,
has been given in J.RB, by R. G, Collin gwood and Miss M. V. Taylor. For a survey
of the results attained between 1914 and 1928 see Sir G. Macdonald, Roman Britain
1914-1928, British Academy Proceedings, n.d. [1931].
B. Modern Works
L General
CoUingwood, R. G. Roman Britain. Ed. 3. Oxford, 1934.
The Archaeology of Roman Britain. London, 1930. (Ed. 2 in preparation.)
CoUingwood, R. G. and J. N. L. Myres. Roman Britain and the English Settlements,
Oxford, 1936.
Haverfield, F. The Romanization of Roman Britain. Ed. 4 (revised by George
Macdonald). Oxford, 1924.
The Roman Occupation of Britain. (Revised by George Macdonald.) Oxford,
1924.
II. Special Topics
The topics discussed in this chapter are all treated at greater length by the
writer in Roman Britain and the English Settlements^ and (so far as they concern
economic matters) in the section upon Britain in Tenney EmvTsAn Economic Survey
of Ancient Rome, vol. iii, 1937, pp- i~ii8.
The History of towns: R. E. M. Wheeler, Report on Excavatio?is at Verulamium
(Soc. of Antiquaries, 1936); Sir G. Macdonald, Roman Britain 1914-1928,
ch. mil. ' ■ . ■ . . .
Villas: for generalities, Haverfield-Macdonald, Roman Occupation..., pp. 219-32;
CoUingwood, Archaeology of Rom. Brit. ch. vii; T. D. Kendrick and C. Hawkes,
Archaeology in England and Wales 1914-1931, London, 1932, pp. 260-67.
Villages and peasantry: Haveriield-Macdonald, op. cit. pp. 233-4; Haverfield,
Romanization of Rom. Brit. pp. 45-^7; CoUingwood, Archaeology..., ch. x;
Kendrick-Hawkes, aV. pp. 267-70.
Mines: O. Davies, Roman Mines in Europe, Oxford, 1935, ch. v; G. C. Whittick,
Roman Mining in Britain (Trans. Newcomen Society, xii, 1931-32).
Pottery: the Nene valley: Victoria County Hist. Hunts, i, 1926, pp. 225-52;
E. T. Artis, The Durobrivae of Antoninus identified and illustrated...,
London, 1828; the New Forest; Hey wood Sumner, Excavations in New Forest
pottery sites, 1927.
Fulling in villas: G. E. Fox, Archaeologia, lix, 1905, p. 207.
The Celtic revival in art: E. T. Leeds, Celtic Ornament, 1933, ch. vi.
756
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER IX
THE IMPERIAL RECOVERY
A. ■■ Ancieht Sources
(i) Inscriptions ■ '
For inscriptions see tlie selection in .Dessatij' iii^ Index Hi, pp. 301-8, and O.G.I.S.
569, 612, 718 and 719, and Appendix III in. L. .Homo’s Essm sur is rlgfie ik
penur JurHien (270-275), pp. 3 50x77.' (see B. I, i) and tlie refctcncrs given in tia;
footnotes to tlie cliapter.
(2) Cmm
Besides the relevant parts of Cohm^ Descripthn kisiorique^ ^ilattingly, Ilanlhok
qf Roman Coins, IMattingly and Sjd.eiiham, Tke Romm Imperlai Coinage v, i
and V, ii by P. H, Webb), and J. Vogt, Akxandrbtische see also:
Babelon, J. MHai lions i'or du trisor Arras. Aretlinse,.!, 1924, p. 45.
Blanchet, A. £tudes de numismatique. Paris, voL 11, 1901., pp, 212 iff,
Brett, A, B. Aunt and Solidi ofih Arras Hoard. Noin. Ciir. 1933, p. 2'68; ,
■ Evans, (Sir) Arthur. Some Notes on the Arras Hoard. Num. Chr. 1930, p., 221. .
Giesecke, W. Aniikes GeUwesen. Leipzig, 1938,
L^pauile, E. £<2 monmk romaine a la jin dm kaut Empire. Rev, N.. i. 888, p. 39.1 1889,
■■■ F* ^3:5-'
Oman, (Sir) C, Tke Legionary Coins of Fictofmus, Carausius and Alkcitis. Xu in.
Chr, 1924, p. 53.
Pink, K. Th Minting of Gold in tke Period of Diode Start and tke Arras Hoard. Num,
Chr, 1934, p. X06.
von Sallet, A. Die Daten der AkxanirinisckinMunzen. Berlin, iSy-o.' .
(3) Texts
Anonymus contiiiuator Dionis. Frags, 10-15 (F.H.G. iv, pp. 197-9),
AureHus Victor, Caesares^ ed. F. Pichlmayr, Leipzig, 1911, x.xxv-xi,'.
Dexippus. Frag. 24 (F.H.G, ni, pp. 682-686). A better text in F. Gr. Hht.
(Jacoby), n, p, 460.
Eutropius (ed. F, RueH, Leipzig, 1887), ix, 13-x, 5,
Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum, ed. J, Pesenti, Turin, 1923.
Orosius, Historiae adversum Faganos (ed.-C. Zangemeister, Leipzig, 1 889), vn^ 23, 3-
28, 22,
XII Fanegyrki Latini (iterum rec. Guil. Baehrens, Leipzig, 191 1), vi (vn), vni (v),
X (n), and xi (in).
Petrus Patricius. Frags. 12-15. (F.H.G. iv, pp, 188-90.)
Scriptores Historiae Augustae (ed. E. Hohl, n, Leipzig, 1927), Aureiimms, TacHtis,
Froius, ^adrigae tyrannorum {Firmus, Saturninus, Frocuius ei Bomsm) and
Carrn, Numerianus, Carinus.
Zonaras, xn, 26-xiii, i.
Zosimus (ed. L. Mendelssohn, Leipzig, 1S87), i, 47-11, 17*
Occasional items may be gathered from Jordanes, Romana and Getkai for the
later Greek tradition see Eimapius, John of Antioch, and Malalas.
757
TO CHAPTER IX
B. Modern Works
In addition to the relevant parts of works cited in the General Bibliography^ the
following should be consulted :
I. The Emperors
1. Aurelian
Brambach, W. Beiirage %ur romischen Munzgeschickte. 1 . Sestertius. Frankfurter
Munzzeituiig, no* 232, 1920, p. 197.
Glermont-Ganneau, Ch. Odeinat et Vaballat. Rev. bibHque, xxix, 1920, p. 382.
Dorligny, A. S. Aurilien et la guerre des momayeurs. Rev. N. ix (Sen 3)? 1891,
Fevrier, J. C. Essai sur Phis torn politique et iconomique de Palmyre. Paris, 1931.
Fisher, W, H. The Augustan ^Vita Aurelianid J.R.S. xix, 1929, p. 125.
Giesecke, W , Die Mun%reformen der Kaiser Caracalla^ Anrelianus und Diocletianus.
Frankfurter Miinzzeitung, no. 41 (N.F.), 1933, p. 65 and p, 99.
Homo, L. Essai sur le regne de fempereur Aurilien (270-275). Paris, 1904.
Jorga, N. Le probleme de P abandon de la Dade. Rev. hist, du Sud-Est Europeen, i,
1924, p. 37.
Mattingly, H. Sestertius and Denarius under Aurelian. Num. Chr. 1927, p. 219.
Pridik, E. Zur Mimzreform des Kaisers Anrelianus. Numismatik (Munich), xxxiv,
1933, p, 160.
Richmond, I. A. The City- Wail of Imperial Rome. Oxford, 1930.
Schnabel, P. Die C krone logie Aurelians. Klio, xx, 1926, p. 363.
Stein, A. Zeiibestimmungen von Gallienus bis Aurelian. Klio, xxi, 1927, p. 197.
Sydenham, E. A. The Roman Monetary System. Num. Chr. 1919, p. 140.
Waltzing, J. P. ^tude historique sur les corporatio?is professionnelles chez les Remains
depuis les origines jusqu'a la chute de P Empire de POccidefit. 4 vols. Louvain,
1895-1900.
Webb, P. H. The Reform of Aurelian. Num. Chr. 1919, p. 235; 1927, p. 304.
Arts, in P.W. s.vv. Domitius (36) L. Anrelianus (E. Groag), Aurelius (84) Quintillus
(Henze).
2. Tacitus
Baynes, N. H. Three Notes on the Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine, i. The
Effect of the Edict of Gallienus. J.R.S. xv, 1925, p. 193.
Hohl, E. Fopiscus und die Biographic des Kaisers Tacitus. !Oio, xi, 1911, p. 178
and p. 284.
Art. in P.W. s.v. Claudius (361) M. Tacitus (Stein).
3. Probus
Alfoldi, A. Die tribunicia potestas des Kaisers Probus. Blatter f. Munzfreunde, 1923,
p. 352.
Babelon, E. Le tyran Saturninus. Rev. N. 1896, p. 133,
Crecs, J. H. E. The Reign of the Emperor Probus. London, 1911.
Dannhauser, E. Untersuckungen zur Gesckichte des Kaisers Probus (276-282). Jena,
1909.
L6pauile, E. £tude historique sur M: Aurelius Probus dPapres la numlsmatique du
regne de cet empereur. Lyons, 1884.
Stein, A. Tenagbio Probus. Klio, xxix, 1936, p. 237.
Westermann, W. L. The Papyri and the Chronology of the Reign of the Emperor
Probus. Aeg. i, 1920, p. 297.
Art. in P.W. s.v Aurelius (194) M. Probus (Henze),
75,8
BIBLIOGRAPHY
4, Cams and Ms sms
Elmer, G. Bir Feidz&g des Kmsers Carimsgegm dk ^adi. Der Mlj.n2eiisaiiiiiiler,
1935, p. ir. 'A,'-' ■■ ^
Arts, in P.W* Aurelius (75) ,M.-' Otrinns, Aurelius (77) AL' Cams, Aurelius
(174) Numerras Numerianus. (Henze).
, j; Biodetian- and kh CfMe agues
Babeloii.* J. Cmtstance Chhn ei la TdirareMe; m midalihn d^(tr inidit. Gazette des
Beaus Alts, 1933, p. li.
Bulic, Fr. Vimperaiare Bmieziam^ Spahto, 1916. .
Cantareili, L. Per la s/ma ddf imferai&ri GmtanzQ Cimrj. Atti d. Pont. Accad.
roniana di archeologk, 1, 2 (Ser. 3),.:i9a-3,.-p:.-5'i.
Costa, G. €. Fakrins ■ Estratto^daI. Diz. Epig. ii, pp. 1793“**
1908, Spoleto, 1912.
Janssens, E. Carausius^ premier somerain naitmai de la Grande Breiagne. Latonaos,
193J, p. 269. _
Kiiich, K., F. Ifarcdesrmnp/iedeSaiem^u'e, ¥aTiSy jB()o,
Kubitscliek, W. Z//r GescMc/iie des UsurpaMrs JcMikus, Wien S.B. 2928, p. 40S i ,
Afattinglv, H. Th Roman Virmes^'^ . Harv, TheGL Rev. xxx, 1937, p. 103.
Seeck, O. Mene mi cite Daten zur GescMcMe Diockiians und Consianims. Rh. Mus.
.nxii, 1907, p, 488.
Stade, K. Der PoHtiker Di&kktian und dk ktzti grosse CMistent'irfoigmg. Diss.
Frankfurt a. M., Wiesbaden, 1926.
Webb, P. H. TM coinage of Jiketus, Mum. Cbr. 1906, p. 127.
— — Tke reign and coinage of Carausms. London, 1908.
Wilclcen, U. Zur GescMcMe des Usurpators JcMikus. BerL S.B. xxv, 1927, p. 270,
6. Tie Successors of Bmktian
Antonkdes, C. Kaiser Lkinius. Munich, 1884.
Baynes, N. H. Constantine tke Great and tke Christian Church. Proceedings of the
British Academy, xv, 1929,
Kubitschek, W. Bomifms Domitianus md Alexander Tyrannus. Mitt. d. Num,
Gesellschaft in Wien, xvi, 1929, p. x.
Laffranchi, L. Vxi Jnno Imperatorio di Cosiantmo Magrn^ Atti d. Pont. Accad.
romana di archeologia, I92i,’ p. 413,
Maurice, J, Numismatique Comtmtlnknm. 3 yols. Paris, 1908-12.
Stlickelberg, E. A. La farentd de Maxence et de Com tame I £aprh les momaks.
Riy. ItaL d. Numismatica,'i899, p. 377.
Voetter, O. JhnenmUnzen Kaiser Constantins des Grosser Mitt. d. Clubs der Mfinz-
tmd Medaillon-Freunde in Wien, 1895, p. 76.
Westphalen, Count. La date de faninement au Sr$ne de Constantin k Grand. Rev. N.
1887, p. 26.
Arts. In P.W, s.pp. Constantinus (2)-(Benjaiiiiii), Constantins (r) (Seeck), Licinius
(31a) (Seed), Maxentius (Groag), Maximianus (i) Herculius, (2) Galerius
(Enssiin).
II. Spscial Topics
I. Ciromkg^
Stein, A. Zur Ckromkgk der rimiseken Kaiser mn Becius Ms Dmktian, Arch. Ftp.
VII, 1924, p. 30 (and see tin,
TO CHAPTER IX
759
2. Ceremonial
Alfoldi, A, Die Jusgestaliung des monarc hisc ken Zeremonieils am romischen Kaiserkofe.
Rom. Mitt XLix, 1934, p. 3.
Insignien uni Tracht der romischen Kaiser, Ib. l, 1935, p. 3.
3. The Gallic Empire
Blanchet, A. Note sur la Legio F Macedonica sous GalHen et Fictorin, Mus. B,
xxyiij 1923, p. 169.
Erman, A. Marius und Fictorinus, Z.N. vii, 1880, p. 347.
Jullian, C. Mistoire de ia Gaule, Paris, voL v (ed. 2, 1921), pp. 570-615,
Mattingly, H. The Legionary Coins of Fictorinus, Trans, of the International
Numismatic Congress, June 30-J11I7 3, 1936, London, 1938, pp. 214-18.
4. The Goths
Bang, M. Die Germanen im romischen Diensthis xum Regierungsantritt Constantins I,
Berlin, 1906.
Bury, J. B. The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians, London, 1928, pp. 21-51.
Rappaport, B. Die Einfalle der Goten in das romische Reich bis auf Constantin,
Leipzig, 1899.
5, Persia and the East
Chapot, V. La frontiere de PEuphrate, Paris, 1907.
Christensen, A. U Iran sous les Sassanides, Copenhagen-Paris, 1936.
Ensslin, W. Die weltgeschichtliche Bedeutung der Kampfe zwischen Rom und Fersien,
N.J.f. Wiss. IV, 1928, p. 399.
N5ldeke, Th. TabarI. Geschichte der Ferser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden,
Aus der arab. Chronik des Tabari iibersetzt, Leyden, 1879.
Aufsdtze zur Fersischen Geschichte, Leipzig, 1887.
7.60'
BIBLIOGRAPHY
, CHAPTER X
: ; : THE END OF THE PEMCIPATE^ \
Reference to the more important passages in the .Ancient Sources is given from
time to time in the footnotes. The list of works here- cited must be supplemented
by the bibliographies to other Chapters' (e.g. i, ii, vi, and ix), and the writer has
included here those that seemed to him 'of special worth. Also,, to avoid repetition^
wwks which contain matter upon the reforms, of Diocletian are mentioned here
only. . . . ' ■ '
AlfoMi, A. Dii jMSgestakmg dm mmarcMsc/m ZiremmieUs am romisc/m Kaiser-
hfe. Rom. Mitt, xwxj 1934, p. 3.'
Imignim md Track ier rmiseken Kaiser. Rom. Mitt, i, 1935, p, i.
— — 2 ,ur Kemtms der Zeit ier' fmhehen Boliatenkauer. Z.N. xx,xvn„ 1927,
p. 197 (also xxxviii, 1928, p. 156). ^ ^ ■
— — La p^ande crise du monde rammn au Idle slkk. If Antiqiiite Classiqiie, 'vii,..
1938, p. 5.
— D ii Fwkerrschajt der P annonkr tm Romerreicke and die Rea him des Helienen-
mms mter Gaiiknus. 25 Jahre Rdm.-Germ, Kommission, 1930, p. n.'
Anderson, J. G. C. Tke Genesis of Diocletian^ s Propindal Re-orgamsaiisn., J.R.S,
xxii, 1932, p. '24.
Babnt, E. Ch. Reckerckes sur ia Garde Impiriaie et sur k Corps d^Offiders de PJrmie
komame. Rev. H. cxiv, .1913, p. 225'andcxvi, 1914, p. 225.
Baynes, N. H. Tkree Notes on ike Riforms of Diocietian and Constantine. L Th
Effect of the Edict of Gallienus. J.R.S. xv, 1925, p. 193.
Besnier, M. Eistoire Romaine. Paris, 1937, pp. 109-17; 187-91; 244-63,
Charlesw'orth, M. P. Borne Observations on Rukr-Cuk espedalh in Rome. Har?.
Theoh.Rev, xxrin, 1935, p. 5.
Promdenfm and Aitemltas. Harv. TheoL Rev, xxix, 1936, p, 107.
Cheesman, G, L. The Juxi Ha of ike Roman Imperial Army. Oxford, 19 14*
Costa, G. Riligionee Poiitka neiP Impero Romano. Turin, 1923, pp. 32-87; 271-
87.
Delbrueck, R. Der spairomiseke Kaiserornat. Antike, viii, 1932, p. i.
Ferrero, G. The Ruin of ike Ancient Cimlisation and tke Triumph of Christianity,
Translated by the Hon. Lady Whitehead, New York, 1921.
Gmelin, U. Auctoritas, RSmischer Princeps md papstiicker Primat, In Geistige
Qrundiagen rdmischer Kirchenpoiitiki Forscliungen zur Kitchen- und Geistes-
geschichte, xi, Stuttgart, 1937, pp. 58-79.
Grosse, R. Romiscie Miiitargeschkkte mm Gal/knus his zum Beginn der Syzantim-
schen Tkemenverfassung, Berlin, X920.
Hahn, L. Das Kaiser turn, Leipzig, 1913.
Herzog, E, Gesekkhie md Bystem derromischen Biaatsverfassung, IL Dk Kaiserzeit
■ mn der Dikiatur Cdsars his zum Regkrungsantriti Dmietians, i, GescMcht-
iiche tJhmkkt, 2 , Bystem der Ferfassung der Kaiserzeit Leipzig, 1887-1891,
Hirschfeld, O. Dk kalserlichen Ferwaltungsheamten, Ed. 2, Berlin, 1905.
Dk Rangtitil Jer rMmhen Kaiserzeit BerL S.B. 1901, p. 579 (« Kleine
Schriften, Berlin, 1913, p* 646).
Dk rBmiseke Btaatszeitung unddk Akkiamatknen im Bemat BerL S.B. 1905,
P' 93® (=*= Kleine Schriften, Berlin, 'I913, p. 682).
TO CHAPTER X 761
Jantere, K. Die romhche Weltreicksldee und die Entstehmg der meitlichn Mack
des Papstes, Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, Ser. B, voL zxi, Turku, 1936.
Karlowa, O. Romhche RechtsgescMchte, Yo\, i, Staatsrec hi md Rechtsquellen.
. Leipzig, ■1885. ■
Ke7es, C. W. The Rise of the Equites in the Third Century of the Roman Empire,
Princeton, N.J. 1915.
Kornemann, E, Doppelprinzipat und Reichsteihng im Imperium Romanum. Leipzig-
Berlin, 1930, pp, 78-123.
” — — Fom antiken Btaai^ In Staaten, Volker, Manner. Leipzig, 1934, pp. iz-16.
Kruse, H. Studien zur ojfzie lien Geltung dec Kaiser hi Ides im fomischen Reiche,
Pader born, 1934.
Lambreclits, P. La Composition du Bin at remain de Beptime Binire a Dioclitien (193-
284). Diss. Pann. Ser, I, fasc. 8, Budapest, 1937.
Mattingly, H. Roman Coins, London, 1928.
Mitteis, L. Reichsrecht und Foiksrecht in den ostUchen Promnzen des romischen
Kaherreiches, Leipzig, 1891.
Mommsen, Th. Romisches Btaatsreckt, 11, 2^; iii, 2. Leipzig, 1887-1888,
Pippidi, D. M. Le ^Numen Augusti^ observations sur une forme occidentale du culte
impiriale. Rev. E.L. xi, 1931, p. 83.
Ritterling, E, 7 sum romischen Heerwesen des ausgehenden dritten J ahrhunderts.
Festschrift ftir Otto Hirschfeld, Berlin, 1903, p. 345.
Art. s.v, legio in P,W. coll. 1329-62.
RostovtzefF, M. The Bocial and Economic History of the Roman Empire, Chs. ix—
XII, Oxford, 1926.
(Later additions are to be found in the German and Italian editions given in the
General Bibliography.)
Schulz, O. Th. Fom Prinzipat zum Dominat, Paderborn, 1919.
Stein, A. Der romische Ritterstand. Ein Beitrag zur Bozial- und Personengeschichte
des romischen Reiches, Munich, 1927.
Btellvertreter der Praefecti Praetorio, Hermes, lx, 1925, p. 94.
Stein, E. Geschichte des spatromischen Reiches, Vol. i, Fom romischen zum hyzantin-^
ischen Btaate. Vienna, 1928, pp, 1—93.
Zum Gebrauch des prokonsularischen Titels seiiens der romischen Kaiser, Klio,
XII, 1912, p. 392,
Die kaiser lichen Beam ten und Truppenkorper im romischen Deutschland unier
dem Prinzipat. Vienna, 1932.
Vogelstein, M. Kaiseridee-Romidee und das Ferhaltnis von Staat und Kirche seit
Constantin. Teil i: Fon Augustus bis Diocletian. Breslau, 1930, pp. 4-49.
Weber, M. Romhche Kaisergeschichte und Kirchengeschichte. Stuttgart, 1929.
J)ie Fereinheitlichung der religiosen Welt. In R. Laqueur, H. Koch and W.
Weber, Probleme der Bpatantike. Stuttgart, 1930, pp. 67 ryy.
Numerous articles in P.W. s.vv. a cognitionibus (v. Premerstein), ab epistolis
(Rostowzew), a libellis (v. Premerstein), a memoria (Fluss), a rationibus (Liebenam),
res privata (Liebenam), officium (Boak), perfectissimus (Ensslin), senatus (O’Brien
Moore, in SuppL vi), a studiis (Kubler); and in D.-S. s.vv. consilium principis
(Humbert), praefectus praetorio and praefectus urbi (Cagnat),
762
BIBLIOGRAPHY
■, . CHAPTER XI
, 'THE REFORM'S OF DIOCLETIAN
' TMs bibliograplijis to be read i.ii conjunction witli that to Chapter 1% Th End
&f tke PrincipMeiiot that reason several listed there already, are not repeated
here. '
BajneSy N. H. Tiree Notes m she Reforms qf Diode iim md Constantine. 2. The
Jrmy reforms of Disckiian md Constmtine, J.R.S. xv, 192 5^ p. 201.
Besnier, M. Hisimn Romaine. Paris, 19373pp. 297-317.
Bott, H. Die GrmdzUge der dmkkftmmken Bteuerverfassung, Diss. -Frankfurt,
Darmstadt, 192E. (But see the review by G. Ostrogorsky in Deutsche Litera-
torzeitong, L, 1929, col, 1349/77.)
Biicher, K. Die dmkkfimtsche Taxordnung vom Jakre 301. Zeitschrift fur die
gesamte Staatswissenscimft, l, 1894,^ pp. 189-672 (---= Beitriige zur Wirt-
schaftsgeschichte, Til bingen, 1922, pp. 179-242,)
Bury, J, B. Tk Fromttdai List of P^eron a. JJLS. xin, 1923, p. 127.
Costa, G. C, Fakrius Diocietiams. Estratto dal Diz, Epig. l^ol. ii, pp. 1793-1908,
'Spoleto, 1912. ■ ■
Lot, F. Dimpot fonder et la capitation personnelie sous le has-empire et a fep&fue
'■ franfue, Paris, ' 1928.
Mickwitz, G. Giidsmd IFirtschaft im romischen Reich des 4, f ahrkunierts n, Chn
Helsingfors, 1932.
Mommsen, Th. Das romische MiHidrwesen ' seii Diodetian. Hermes, xxi?, 1S89,
p. 195 (■« Gesammelte Schriiten, ¥oI. vi, 1910, p. 284).
Die di&detiamsche Rekhspraefectur, .Hermes, xxxi, 1901, p. 201 (« Gesam-
melte Sciiriften, voL vi, 1910, p. 20x).
Dux\ Gesammelte Sciiriften, voL vi, 1910, p. 204.
Ferzekkniss der romischert Promnze?$ aufgesetzi urn 297. BerL Abh. 1862,
p, 489 (« Gesammelte Schriften, voL y, 1.908, p. 361).
Mommsen, Tli. and H. Biiimner. Der Maximaitarif des Diodetim. Berlin, 1893,
Nischer, E. C. The Jrmy Reforms of Diode Han and Constantine and their Modifea--
Hons up to the Time of the NoHHa Dignitatum. J.R.S. xiii, 1923, p. i.
— — Die ^elkn fur das spatr’dmiseke Heersaesen. AJ.Fln nin, r932, pp. 21-97.
in J. Kromayerand G. Veith, Eeerwesen uni Nrkgfuhrung^ Mtlllers Handbuch,
Abt. 4, Teii 3, Band 2, Munich, 1928,- pp, 481 /yy. (But see some corrections
and modifications of Nischer’s conclusions by N. PI, Baynes {supra% by E.
Stein in Byz, Zeitsehr. xxv, 1925, p. 387, n. 3, and fay W. Kufaitschek In P.W.
j.r?. legio, coL 1832 lyy.),
Parker, H. M. D, J History of the Roman World from A.n. 158 to 337. Chaps, iv
and v: The Reforms of Diode Han and Constantine. London, 1935, pp. 262-
290.
— - — The Legions of Diode Han and Constantine* J.R.S. xxin, 1933, p. 175.
Piganiol, A, UImpk de Capitation sous k Bas-Empire Romain, Chambcry, 1916.
Pink, K. Die Bilkrprdgung der iiodetimischen Tetrarchie, N.Z. ixiii (N.F. xxiri),
1930, p. 9.
— — Die Gddprdgung des Diodetian und seiner Mitregenten, N.Z. ixiv (N.F,
xxiv), 1931, p. I.
Seeck, O. Geichkhte des Untergangs der antiken Welt* Book in, Dk Ferwaltungies
Reiches. VoL Stuttgart, 1921.
TO CHAPTER XI 763
Van Sickle, C. E. Conservatism and fhtlosophlcal Influence in th reign of Biocletian.
■ , /C.P.., XXVII, i''932, p,'5'r.' ■
Stade, Kn Der PoIMker Diokktlan und die ietzte grosse Chnstenverfolgung. Diss,
Frankfurt a.M., Wiesbaden, 1926.
Stein, E. Geschichte des spatromiscken 'Reiches. VoL 1, Vienna, 1928, pp. 98-114.
Untersuckungen Uher das Officium der Prdtorianerpr of ektur seit Diokletian.
. "Vienna, 'X 9.2 2. '
Taubenschlag, R. Das romische Privatrecht zur T^eit Diokletians. Bull. Acad.
Polon. des Sciences et Lettres, Cracow, 1923, p. 14 1.
Numerous articles in P.W. s,vv, corrector (v. Premerstein), comitatenses, comi
tatus, consistorium, dux, scrinium (Seeck), consularis (Kubler); and in D.-S. s.vv,
vicarius (Lecrivain). . . '
764 V ■ BIBLIOORAPHY:, ..
CHAPTER Xir , '
THE DETELOPMENT' OF PAGANISM IN THE
ROMAN EMPIRE
The ancient sources are listed in. the bibliographies to tiie- earlier chapters. Attention
may be called to the selection of relevant inscriptions in Dessau 2957-50500, 9230-
9339 *
For detailed surveys of the modern literature, see the reports in Bursian (latest by
Fr. Plister, Supp. ccxxix, 1930: published separatriy as Die Rtiigim der Grin'/nff
uMdRfJmen Leipzig, 1930); Arch. Relig. (latest by O. Weinreicli, xxxiii, 1936, and
xxxiv, 1937); Year’s Work in Classical Studies (by H. J. Rose); J. E. A. (1937-
1936 by A. D. Nock, from 1937 by H. J. Rose, in the coilabr>rative bibliography of
Graeco-,Romaii Egypt); Jalirbuch fur .Liturgiewissenscliait (by O. CastJ and col-
laborators). '
..Alfoldi, A. Dk Jiisgestakimg Jes -mmareilsc^^^ Zeremmmk/s az*! romistikn Kaiser--
hfe, Rom. Mitt, xiix, 1934, .p. 3.-
— — - Imigwkn and Trac^i der rBrnlsdan Kaiser. Ib. l, 1935, p. 3.
Fesiwai qf his in Rome under de C hist tan Em perm of tie IFik Century.
Diss. Pann. Ser. 11, fasc. 7, Budapest, 1937.
Belm, F. Das MidiraskHtgium DieSurg. Roniisch-germanische Forschungeii, 4
Berlin, 1928. (See the review by A. D. Nock in Gnomon, vi, 1930, p. 30.)
B,ide2, J. La vie de PEmpereur yuiien. Paris, .1930.
de Porpkyre. Ghent, I9i3.^-
Blinkenberg, Chr. ArcMoiogische Studien. Gopenhage.ii,. 1904.
Boissier, G. ' a vols. Paris, 1891. ■
Bonner, C. Borne 'Phases of Religious Feeling in Later Pagaztism. Harv. TfieoL Rev.
XXX, 1937, p. 119.
Bosch, CL Die kieinasiatiscken Munxen der romischen Kmserzeii, Tell n, Einzel-
uBtersuchungen. Bd. i; Bithpiien, i Halfte. -Spattgart, 1935. „
Boulanger, .An, ' Paris, . 1925.
Breiich, A. Aspetti della morte neile iscrixkni sep&krali delP Impero rommo. Diss.
Pann. Ser. .4 fasc. 7, Budapest, 1937.
Calder, W. M. Notes on Anatolian religion. Journ. Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society, X4 1924, p. 19. ■
Chapoutliier, F, Les Dmeuns au service i^une dime. Paris, 1935.
Clemen, C. ReUghmgeschichtlkke Erklarung des Netmi Testaments. Ed. 2, Giessen,
1924.
Cook, S. A. The Religions of Ancient Palestine in the Light of Archaeology.
London, 1930. Chap. 114 The Graeco-Roman Age, pp. 153-230.
Cumont, F, Textes et monuments figuris relatifs aux mysieres de MUkra. 2 vols.
Brussels, 1894-1900.
~ — Les mystkes de Mi thru. Ed. 3, Brussels, 1913.
Mitkra en Strurk. In Scriiti in onore di Bartolomeo Nogara^ Citti del Vatlcano,
1937, p. 95.
— — Les religions orkntales Jans le paganisme remain. Ed. 4, Paris, 1929.
— ^ — After Life in Roman Paganism. New Haven, 1922.
Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans. New York, 1912,
For a 1 st of his other publications see Milanges Franx Cumont (Brussels,
1936), p. viL
TO CHAPTER XII 765
Deissmann, A. Lick mm Osten. Ed. 4, Tubingen, 1923. (Eng. trans. by jR. L. M.
Strachan, London, 1927.)
Dieterich, A. Bine Mithrasliturgie, Ed. 3, rev. by O. Weinreicb, Leipzig, 1923.
Kleine Bchrlften, Leipzig, 1911.
Dolger, F. J. Antike und Christeritum: Kultur-- und religionsgeschichtlicke Studien, i—
Munster, 1929-.
Bol Salutis. Ed. 2, Munster, 1925.
■ — IX® Munster: vol. i, 1910 (ed. 2, 1928); ii and iii, 1922; iv, 1927;
v, in preparation.
von Domaszewski, A. Die Religion des romischen Heeres, Westdeutsclie Zeitscbrift,
XIV, 1895, p. I.
Abhafidlungen xiir romischen Religion. Leipzig, 1909.
Eitrem, S. Aus Papyrologie tmd Religionsgesckickte^^ : die magischen Papyri,
Munchener Beitr. z. Papyrusforschung u. ant. RechtsgescHichte, xix, 1934,
P; 243 -
Festugiere, A.-J. UIdial religieux des Grecs et PEvangUe. Ed. 2, Paris, 1931.
Festugiere, A.-J. and P. Fabre, Le monde grico-romain au temps de Notre Seigneur,
2 vols. Paris, 1935.
Geffcken, J. Der Ausgang des grieckisckromischen Heidentums, Heidelberg, 1920,
and Nackragy 1929 (included in reprint).
Gernet, L. and A. Boulanger. Le ginie grec dans la religion. Paris, 1932.
Gordon, A. E. The cults of Africa. Univ. of Calif. Publ. in Class. Arch, n, no. i,
Berkeley, Cal. 1934.
Graillot, H. Le Cuke de Cybele. Paris, 1912.
Halliday, W. R. The Pagan Background of early Christianity. Liverpool, 1925.
Haussleiter, J. Der Vegetarismus in der Antike, Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche
und Vorarbeiten, XXIV, Berlin, 1935.
Hepding, H. Attis^ seine My then und sein Kult, Ib. i, Giessen, 1903,
Herter, H. De Priapo. Ib. xxiii, Giessen, 1932.
Hill, Sir G. F. Some Palestinian Cults in the Graeco-Roman Age, Proc. Brit. Acad.
V, 1912.
Hopfner, Th. Griechisch-dgyptischer Offenbarungszauber. Stud. z. Palaeographie u.
Papyruskunde, ed. C. Wessely, xxi, xxiii. Leipzig, 1922-24.
Jones, L. W. The Cults of Dacia, Univ. of Calif. Publ. in Class. Phil, ix, 1929,
no. 8. Berkeley, Cal. 1929.
Kan, A. H. De lovis Dolicheni cultu.. , , Groningen, X901.
Kazarow, G. Neue Mithras denkmdler aus Bulgarien, Germ, xix, 1935, p. 24.
Miihrasdenkmaler aus Bulgarien, Ann. Mus. Nat. Bulg. vi, 1932-34,
P- 39 -
Keil, J. Die Kulte Lydiens, In Anatolian Studies presented to Sir William Mitchell
Ramsay, Manchester, 1923, p. 239.
Kittel, G. (ed.). Theologisches Worterbuch %um Neuen Testament, Stuttgart, 1932-.
Kroll, J. Die Lehren des Hermes Trismegistos, Munster, 1914.
Kroll, W. De oraculis Chaldaicis. Breslauer phil. Abh. vii, i, Breslau, 1 894.
Lafaye, G. Histoire du culte des divinitis d"^ Alexandrie. Paris, 1884.
Lagrange, M.-J. Introduction a P£tude du Nouveau Testament: Quatrieme Partie:
Critique hi storique. i, Les Mysteres: POrphisme, Paris, 1937.
La Piana, G. Foreign groups in Rome during the first centuries of the Empire, Harv.
TheoL Rev. xx, 1927, p. 183.
Latte, K. Art. s.v, Synkretismus in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. 2.
Lietzmann, H. Geschichte der alien Kirche, Berlin, vol. i, 1932 (Eng. trans. by
B. L. Wolff, London, 1936); vol. ii, 1936.
Die Umwelt des jungen Christentums, Die, Antike, viii, 1932, p. 254.
766 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Macchioro, V. II si^icmismo reiigmo, ef- .Rev. * 4 rc!i, 4® Ser. ix, 1907,
pp, 141 and 253.
ManteniFel, G. De §pss€uiis Gmeds Jegypil efapyru, osirmis lapyilusque €&ikciis.
Trav, de la Soc. des Sciences: et des ■ Lettres de Varsovie^ Classe i (1930)^
No. 12, Warsaw, 1930.
Milne, J. G. Art. Graeco-Egyptian; Religion in En^ychpaedia (ff Eiitgtm md
E/iiVr, ed. J. Hastings.
Moore, C. H. Tke Disirikitim of Oriental 'Cults In ike GmJs' md :Germanies.
Trans. Am. PML Ass. xxxvin, 1907,- p. 109.
Nilsson, M. P. En marge de ia grande inscription bacchifue 'itt Miiropoittmi Museum.
Stiidi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioiii, x, 1934, p. i.
WesermerscMidenkeiien der romiscken mi dir gtiecMscken Religion, Rom,
Mitt. XLV!ii, 1953, p. 24;. ■ ^
Nock, A. D. Comersion, Oxford, 1933.. ■.
— — Early Geniik Ckristiamiy and its ' Heikmstir Background, In Essays on ike
■ Trinity and ike Incarnation, ed. A, E.J. Rawlmson, London, 192S..
5 / Paul London, 193S.
Norden, E. Jgnostos Them, Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1923 (one page added to cd. i).
Perdrizet, P. Les terns cuites ^'ecyues d^gypte de ia coikdion Foufuet, 2 vols«
Nancy, 1921.
Peterson, E. EI 2 0 EO 2 . Gottingen, 1926.
Picard, Ch. £pkhe et Claros, Paris, 1922.
Preisendanz, £. Papyri graecae magkae. Die grkcklscken ZauSerpapyri, i-
Leipzig, 1928-.
Qnandt, G. De Baceko ak Jiexandri aetate in Asia minore cuUo, Diss. pliiL HaL
XXI, pars 2, Halle, 1913.'
Reitzenstein, R. Die keiknistiscken Mysterienreiigionen, Ed. 3, Leipzig, 1927. (For
other works, cf. bibliography m Festsckrift Rickard Reitzenstem, Leipzig, X93 1 .)
Roscher, W. H. (ed.). : Jusfukriickes Lexikon der grkckiscken smd romiscken My tie-
logie, Leipzig, 1884-1937*
SaxI, ,F. ■Mitkras, Typengesckkktlk/ie Untersuckungen. Berlin, 1931. (See reviews
by M. P. Nilsson, Deutsche Lit.^Z, 1933, col. 250; L. Deubner, Gnomon, ix,
1933, p. 372; E. Loewy, Orient, X/V.-Z. xxxvu, 1954, col 485.)
Scott, W. and A. S. Fergoson. Hermetka, 4 vols. Oxford, 1925-36.
Seyrig, H. La triade Mlkp&iiiaim et les temples de Baalbek, Syria, x, 1929, p. 314
(and many other articles in the same periodical).
Swoboda, E. Die Sekiange im Mitkraskuit, Jahreshefte, xxx, 1936, p. 1. ' ■
Taylor, L. R. Tke Cults of Ostia, Biyn Mawr, Penn. 1912.
TodorolF, Y. Tke Fagan Cults in Moesia Inferior, Sofia, 1928.
Toutain, J* Les cuites patens dans P empire remain, i-, Paris, 1907-.
Usenet, H. Das Weikmcktsfest, i, ed. 2, Bonn, 190,
Volkmmiy H, Etudkn 3 sum Nemesisiuit. Arch. ReKg. xxvi, 1928, p. 296.
Weue Beiirage zum Memesiskuit, Ib. xxxi, 1934, p. 57.
Weber, W. Die dgyptisckgrkckiscken Terrakotten, (Kdoigl Maseen zn Berlin.
Mitt, ans der agypt. Sammlung.) 2 vols. Berlin, 1914.
Weber, W. In R. Laqnenr, H. Koch, and W. Weber, ProMeme der SpMantike,
Stnttgart, 1930. pp. 67 s^p
Weinreich, O. Neue Urkmden zur Sarapis-^Reiigi&n. Tubingen, 1919*
Wendiand, P* Die keiknistisekromiseke KuHur in ikren Bezkhmgen zu Judmtum
md Ckristemum, Eds. 2 and 3. Ttbingen, 1912.
Westholm, A. Tke Temples of Soik Studies on Cypriote art during Heiiemsik and
Roman periods, Stockholm, 1936.
Wissowa, G. Religion und Kultrn der RSmer, Ed. 2, Munich, 1912,
767
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV
CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV
PAGAN PHILOSOPHY AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH;
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE EAST: THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WEST
Section I, General, and Section II (i) are due to Professors Creed and Lietzmann,
Section II {a) to (/) is by Professor Creed, Section II (^) is by Mr C. R. C. Allberry,
Fellow of Cbrist’s College, and Section II (i) is by Mr J. Stevenson of St John’s
College, Cambridge.
In this bibliography the following abbreviations are used:
C.S..EX. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna.
Gr. €h\ Sckr, Griechische Christliche SchriftsteUer. Leipzig.
TM, Texte und Untersuchimgen. Berlin.
Texts and translations are placed first, and then modern works.
I. General
Historia Ecclesiastica. The best edition is published in Gr. Chr. Schr.
together with the Latin translation of Rufinus. Edd. E. Schwartz and Th.
Mommsen. VoL ix, i and ii, Text; iii, Introduction, Indices, etc. Leipzig,
1903-1909. The text is conveniently reproduced in an Editio Minor: Eusebius
Kirchengeschichtey ed. E. Schwartz (Leipzig, 1908).
Lawlor, H. J. and J. E. L. Oulton, The Ecclesiastical History and the Martyrs of
Palestine, 2 vols. London, 1927. Vol. i. Translation; vol. 11, Introduction
and Notes.
McGiffert, A. C. English translation, introduction and notes in vol. i of the 2nd
Series of Nicene and P os t-Nlcene Fathers. Oxford, x 890.
Lake, K. and J. E. L. Oulton, Text and Translation, 2 vols. (Loeb). London,
1926, 1932.
Apostolic Fathers. Funk, F. X. Patres ApostoHci. 2 vols. Tubingen, 1901.
3rd ed. of vol. II, ed. F. Diekamp. Tubingen, 1913.
Bihlmeyer, K. Die Apostolischen Vater. Neubearbeitung der Funkschen Ausgabe,
I Teil (Didache, Barnabas, Clemens I, II, Ignatius, Polycarp, Quadratus,
Diognetus). Tubingen, 1924.
J, B. Lightfoot. The Apostolic Fathers. Pt I, vols. i and 2, S. Clement of Pome.
London, 1890; Pt II, vols. x-3, B. Ignatius and S. Poly carp. 2nd ed. London,
1889. A posthumous work edited by J. R. Harmer, London, 1891, gives text
and translation of Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, the Didache, Barnabas, Hermas,
Diognetus, Papias.
Die apostolischen Filter in Handbuch scntm neuen Testament^ ed. H. Lietzmann.
Erganzungsband. 4 Pts. Tubingen, 1920-1923.
English translation by F. Crombie and others in The Ante-Nicene Christian
Library^ vol. i, Edinburgh, 1868.
Lake, K. The Apostolic Fathers*, text and translation. 2 vols. (Loeb). London,
;ri9t:2,/T^
English translations: The Epistles of St Ignatius, by J. H. Srawley. London,
1919; The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, by L. B. Radford, revised edition
by A. J. Maclean. London, 1922; The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,
by W. K. L. Clarke. London, 1937.
768 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dionysius of Alexandria. Fekoe, C. L, AIONYSIOY AEI^ANA. Th Lefiers
0£ier Rmaim Dw^ysim of Jiixa^drm. Ca.mbnd^e^ 1904: he has also
published an English translation of the Letters, and Treatises. London^ n.d.
(?i9iS).. ■ ■ ■ ■
An English translation by S. D. F. -Sal-mond is published in Tie yhie-NieeMe
Ckrtsiim Liimry^ voL xx. Edinburgh, 1B71* ' . ,
Ewphaxil’s, ed. K. Holl, in Gr. Chr* Schr. vol, xxv (191 5), Ancoratus and Fanarion
Haer. i'“33; vol. xxxi (1922) Fanarion Haer. 34«-'64; voL xxxvii (1933)
, Fanarion Haer. 65-80. De fide.
Hippolytus in Gr. Chr. Schr, vol. i (1897), edd* G. N. Bomvetscli and H. Adidis
(Commentarj on Daniel and Song of Solomon, etc.); yqI, xxvi (1916), ed. P«
Wendland (Refutatio omnium Haeresium); voL xxxvi (1929), edd. A. Bauer
and R. Helm (The Chronicle). Translation by j. Ff. AlacSfahon and S. D. F.
Salmond in Tke Jnti-Nkem Cirisitm Library^ vols. vi and ix. Edinburgh,
1 868-1 869. For an English translation of the Refutaiim ef aii liensksi
F. Legge, PMksephmem» z vols. .London, 1921.
Irbnaeus. Smeii Innaei epheopt Lugdumnsts iibros qumfue admrsus kaereses^ cd.
W. W. Harvey. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1857, '
llie Armenian translation of Books iv and.v was published by E. Tcr-Minassiantz
in T.U* XXXV, 1910,
English translations by J. Keble in J Library, qf Faikers §f ike IMy Caihlic
Ci»rr 4 Oxford, 1872, and by A. Roberts, and W. H. Rambaut in Th Jnii-
Nicem Ckrlstian Library^ vols. v and ix, Ed.mburgh, 1868, 1869. An English
translation of the principal pa.ssa.ges by F. R. Montgomery Fiitchcock appeared
in the series Early Church Classics, 2 vols. London, 1916.
El$ iiriB€ihtu ryv aTrmrTiAiKuv lo/piiy^aTo.s, .The Armenian translation wtis
published by K. Ter-Mek^rttscHan and E. Ter-Minassiantz in T.U. xxxi,
1907 .(with German transktio,n)v - Latin translation by S. Weber, Freiburg im B.,
i„9 1 7. Republished with English and French translations in FaSr§kgia OricMiaiis^
xri, Fasc. 5, Paris, 1919. Translated (with introduction)— fJemmiraiim
of the Jposiolk Preaching — byj, Armitage Robinson, London, 1920. (On the
sources of Irenaeus cf. F. Loofs, T.U. xuvi. Heft 2, 1930 with F. R.
gomeiy" Hitchcock, J.T.S. xxxvni, 1957, p. 230, p. 255.)
Julius Africanus. Fragmenta: M. J. Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, Ed. altera, vol. 11,
, pp. ,221-309, .312-509. 0,xford, 1846,
Marcion. a. von Harnack, Marcion: das Emngeiium pom fremden CoiL 'F.U. xlv,
1921; 2iid ed. 1924; Neue Studkn ssu Marcion, T.U. xiiv, Heft 4, 1923.
Methodius in Gr. Chr. Schr. voi xxvii (i9i7)» ed. G. N. Bonwetsch. Translation
in voL XIV of The Jnte’-Nuene Christian Library^ Edinburgh, 1B69.
Achelis, H. DasChrisieniumin denerstendrei yakrhunderten, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1912.
(The second edition of 1925 contains no notes.)
Altaner, B. Pairokgie, Freiburg im B., 1938 (wiA bibliography of recent work).
Bardenhewer, O. Patrologk, 3rd ed. Freiburg im B., 1910. English translation
from 2nd ed. by J. J. Strahan, St Louis, Mo., 1908.
— - — Geschkhte der aiikirchikken Literature Vol. 2. 2nd ed, Freiburg im B,, 1914.
Bauer, W, Reckgiduiigkeit und Ketzerei im dkesten Christentum* Tfibingen, 1934*
Bethune-Baker, J. F, An Introduction to the early history of Christian Doctrine^
Ed. 5. London, 1933,
BiHmeyer, K. Kirchengeschicite auf Grund des Lehrbuches von F. X. von Funk,
I Tell Das chrtsiikhe Aitertum, Paderbom, 1936, (Useful bibliographies.)
vonCkmpetthamen,H. Bk IdeedesMartyriumsinderaltenKircke,
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV 769
Caspar, E. GescMckte des Papsttums, Vol. i. Tubingen, 1930/
Duchesne, L. Bistoire ancienne de rigiise. Vol. i. Paris, 1906. English translation,
vol. I, Earl^ History of the Christian Church, London, 1909.
Ehrhard, A. Die Kirche der Mdrtyrer, Munich, 1932.
Ur kirche und FrUkkatkoIizi$mus,’&omi,iq^f^,
Fliche, A. and V . Martin, Histoire de P^glise, Vol. ii, by J. Lebreton and J. Zeiller,
De ia fin du z^ sikie a la paix constantinlenne, Paris, 1935.
Gwatkin, H. M. Early Church History to z Yoh, hondLon^ 1^12.
Haller,]. Das Fapst turn, Vol. i, Stuttgart, 1934.
von Harnack, A. Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei
Jahrhunderten, 4th ed., 2 vols. Leipzig, 1924. English translation of the
2nd edition by J. Moffatt, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the
first three centuries, London, 1908.
—-^/Geschichte der altchristUchen Literatur bis Eusebius, 3 vols. Leipzig, 1893—
....1904.
Harrison, P. N. The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, London, 1921.
Poly carf s Two Epistles to the Philippians, Cambridge, 1936.
Jackson, F. and K, Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, vol. v. London,
^ 933 *
Kidd, B. J. A History of the Church to a.d. 461. Vol. i, Oxford, 1922.
de Labriolle, P, Histoire de la literature latine chritienne, Ed. 2, Paris, 1924.
» La reaction patenne, £tude sur la polimique antichrdtienne du au vi^ siecle,
Paris, 1934.
Lawlor, H. J. Eusebiana, Essays on the Ecclesiastical History, Oxford, 1912.
Lietzmann, H. Geschichte der alten Kirche, Vol. ii, Ecclesia catkolica, Berlin, 1936.
• Petrus und Paulus in Rom. Ed. 2. Berlin-Leipzig, 1927.
Loofs, F. Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte, Ed. 4. Halle, 1906.
Montgomery Hitchcock, F, R. Irenaeus of Lugdunum, Cambridge, 1914.
Muller, K. Kirchengeschichte, Vol. i, ed. 2, Tubingen, I924--I929.
Philotesia, P. Kleinert zum LXX Geburtstag dargebracht von Ad, HarnackyH, DielSy
K, Holly etc, Berlin, 1907.
Preuschen, E. and G. Krtiger, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, I. Teil, Das
Aliertum, Ed. 2, Tubingen, 1923.
Puech, A. Histoire de la literature grecque chrdtienne. Vol. ii, Paris, 1928.
Ramsay, W. M. The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. Part I. 2 vols., Oxford,
1895, 1897.
Roberts, C. H. An unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel, Manchester, 1935.
Sanday, W. The Gospels in the Second Century. London, 1 876.
Schwartz, E. Kaiser Constantin und die christliche Kirche. Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1936.
Art. in PXR.s.v, Eusebius.
Tixeront, J. Histoire des Dogmes, Vol. i, ed. i l, Paris, 1930.
Turner, C. H. Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastical ii, 1890, p. 105.
C.A.H. XII:
49
BIBLIOGRAPHY
■ !!• Sficiai.Tcjwcs '
{a) Tie Mm. Tisiammi Cmm: Niw Tisiammt Jpmryfka: ,
W§rsMp and Orgmizddm
IS. Churck Order, (i) Latia. Yetsion, ed. E*. Hauler, Diiasmime
m fragmenta Fmmnsm Latina^ mceduni Camnum qui dkuniur Apstdwim
thrum reliquiae. Leipzig, 1900, (2) EtMopic, Arabic and Coptic
■ms, ed, G, Horner, TM Biaiuies of the Apostks (with Eng. trans.).
on, 1904,
R. , H. The so-called Egyptian Church Order and derhed docutnenis. (Texts
tudies, VIII, 4), Cambridge,. 1916.
wiia Jpostokrum. Trans-. -mtli Introduction and Notes. Oxford, 1929.
AirofTToXeKi/ llapd^omfs , . 7he Treatise on ike Apostolic Tradition $J
ppolytus of Rome, ¥oI l Historical Introduction, Textual Materials and
ktiom London, 1937.
S. The Jposio/ic Tradition. of Hippoiyius translated into English with in-
;tkn and notes, Cambrid.ge, .1934,
I- Didascaiia et Comtiiutimes Apostohrum, 2 vols., Paderborn, 1905—
. Meutestamentlkki Apokryphen, Ed, 2, Tubingen, 1923—1924.
.. (Editor.) Apocrypha AMcdota, 2nd series (Texts and Studies, v),
ige, 1897.^
ocryphai Neza Testament, Oxford, 1924.
OfCXHEiS IIAYA'OY (nach dem Papyrus der Hamburger Staats-
iversitats-Bibliothek unter Mitarbeit von W- Schubart), GJticIcstadt,
An Apostokrum.} Gesprache fesu mit seinen Jilngern nack der Aufer-
(T-U, vol XLni.) Leipzig, roio*
.A. Die Briefsammiung des Aposteis Paulus, Leipzig, 1926.
Ind E. Fascher, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, TeiL Bk
p des NTlkhen Kanons^ pp, 450-558. Ed. 7, Tubingen, 1931.
'frischkhte des nsuiestamintikhin Kamns, 1®^ TeiL Leipzig, 1907,
Messe und Herrenmahi, is^z6,
.y Die allgemeine Kirchenordnung, Paderborn, 1914.
' . Cher die pseudoapostolischen Ktrchenordnungen, (Sell rift, der wiss.
Strassburg.) Strassburg, 1910.
■ATi<sr Primitke ChurcL London, 1929.
'^dpQSiolk Succession. In Essays on the Early History of the Church
wir/rj, ed. H. B.,Swete. London, 1918.
(h) The Early Greek Apologists
Ij. Die ditesten Apohgeten, (The most convenient text Includes all
f-century Apologists, except Theophilus.) Gdttingen, 1915.
tarum Christianorum saemli semndL Ed- J. C. Th, Otto. Vols. 1-5
?vorks of S. Justin and works attributed to him). ¥oL i, Jena, 1S42;
l76;vol.ii, 3rd ed.^iSyj; voLiii, jrded. 1879; vol Hsrded. 1880;
1 e^. 1881; yoL vi,Tatian, 1851; vol. vii, Athenagoras, 1857; voL
philus of Antioch, 1E61 ; voL ix, Hermias, Aristides, Aristo, Miltiades,
pollnaris, 1872,
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV
Separate editions;
Justin Martyr; The Apologies of Justin Martyr. Ed. A. W. F. Blent. Cambridge,
Aristides ; The Apology of Aristides. Ed. and translated by J. Bendel Harris (Texts
and Studies, i, i). Cambridge, 1891.
Seeberg, R. Der Apologet Aristides. Erlangen— Leipzig, 1894.
Geffcken, J. in 2 ,wei griecMsche Apologeten (see below).
Atbenagoras ; Atkenagorae Lihellus pro Christianis. Rec. E. Schwartz. Leipzig, 1891
(T.U. IV, Heft 2).
GeiFcken, J. in Zwei griecMsche Apologeten (see below).
Tatian; Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos. Rec. E. Schwartz. Leipzig, 1888 (T.U. iv.
Heft I).
An English translation of Justin Martyr and Athenagoras by M. Dods, G. Reith
and B. P. Pratten is published in The Ante-Nicene Christian Library^ vol. ii,
Edinburgh, 1867, and of Tatian and Theophilus in vol. iii of the same library,
1867, There is a French translation (with Greek text and introduction) of St
Justin’s Apologies by L. Pautigny in the series of Texies et Documents, edited by
H. Hemmer and P. Lejay, Paris, 1904, and there are German translations of
the Apologists in the Biblioihek der Kirchenvdier, vols. xn, xiv and xxxiii.
Munich, 19 1 3-1 917.
English translation of Justin Martyr: The Dialogue with Trypho by A. Lukyn
Williams. London, 1930.
Bardy, G. on Justin, Diet, theol. cath. 8 (1925), 2228-2277.
Bonwetsch, G. N. Justin der Mdrtyrer in Realencyclopadie fur protest. Theologie
und Kirche, ed. 3, ix, pp. 641-650.
Geffcken, J. Zwei griecMsche Apologeten. (In addition to a full commentary on
Aristides and Athenagoras includes very valuable chapters on the Apologetic
literature as a whole.) Leipzig— Berlin, 1907.
Goodenough, E„ R. The Theology of Justin Martyr. JemR, 1923.
Lagrange, M.-J. Saint Justin. Ed. 3, Paris, 1914,
Moody, C. N. The Mind of the early Converts. London, [? 1920].
Puech, A. Les Apologistes grecs du lie siecle de noire ere. Paris, 1912.
(c) The School of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria. All the extant works ed. by Otto Stahlin in Gr. Chr. Schr.
3 vols. Leipzig, 1905-9, with Index (vol. iv), 1936.
English translation by W. Wilson in The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vols. iv,
XII, XXII. Edinburgh, 1868—1871.
G, W. Butterworth has translated the Protreptikos, the ^is dives salvetur and
Fragment of an Address to the Newly Baptised in the Loeb Classical Library.
London, 1919.
The translation by O. Stahlin in the Blbl. d. Kirchenvdier, 2^® Reihe, vols. vii
(1934), vni (1934), XVII (1936) and xx (1938), is important since it is based
on Ms own critical text.
Origen. Origenls Opera omnia, ed. C. H. E. Lommatzsch. Berlin, 1831-1848.
25 vols. This edition is now superseded for some of the most important works by
II vols. in Gr. Chr. Schr., especially the volumes edited by P. Koetschaii:
1 and II (including Ets juaprilptov TTporpeirTtKos;, the eight books of Kara K^Xorov
and Hcpt Evxvd); and v, De Principiis (Il^pt *Apxw). Vols. ni, vi, vn, vin,
IX contain Homilies; vol. iv, Commentary.on John; vols. x, xi. Commentary
on Matthew.
77Z:'V .■BIBLIOGRAPHY,, „
Th' PMMaJis ef Origin^ td.J',. ^ Robinson. Ca:iBbr:idg.e,,'i895.'
Th CmmeMiary qfOtige^ m S, Gmpel^ ed A»E» Broo.ke. 2 Fols., Ckinbridgej
" 1896,
Ceisi AAH 0 HS AOPOSj excnssit et -festitnere conatns est O. Glockner. Bonn,
1924.
English translations: Contra Celsum in The Jnti-Nkem Ckristian Liiraryy vols.
10 and 23, Edinburgh, 1869, 1S72; Be PrindpHs based on Koetschau’s
critical text hj G. W. Butterworth, London, 1936; PMkcaita by G. Lewis,
. Edinburgh,. 1911; selections from the. Commentaries and Homilies by R. B.
■■ Toliiiiton, London, ' i'929.
Cadiou, R. Infroductkn an Systemi d'^Origms. Paris, 193.2.
— ■ — ' La jiunesse J'Origine: Mstoire de i icok d’Jkxandrk au dSni du UBdick.
Paris, 1935. _ . .
Faye, E. de. CkmiM d^Jkxandrk, Etude $ur ies rapports du cMstianisme it di ia
pMlosophk grecque au IP siecle. Paris, 1898.
— Origene: sa zne^son asusore^ sa pensie, 3 vois., Paris, .1923-8.
Koch, H. ■ Pronoia und Paideusk. ■ Studkn tiler Origene $ md sein P'^eriiltms' zum
Piaionismm, Berlin-Leipzig, 1932.. ■
Miara-Staiige, A. Ceisus und Origenes, Das Gememsame iknr Weiiansckatmng,
Giessen, 1926.
MoUand, E. Tke Conception of the Gospel in the Alexandrinian theology. Oslo, 1938.
Rougier, L. Celse ou le conjlit de la cwilisatkn antique et du ckrlstianisme primitif
Paris, 1925.
Toliinton, R. B. Clement of Alexandria. A study in Christian Liberalism. 2 vols.,
London, 1914.
Volker, W. Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes. Ttibingen, 1931.
{d) Montanism
Anderson, J. G. C. Paganism and Christianity in the Upper Tembris Valley in
Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Promnces of the Roman Empire,
Aberdeen, 1906.
Bonwetsch, G. N. Texte zur Qeschkhie des Montanismus, Bonn, 1914.
Calder, W. M. Philadelphia and Montanism. Bull. John Ryl. Lib. yo, 1923, p.
309.
The Epigraphy of the Anatolian Heresies. Anatolian Studies, p. 59, Manchester,
1923.
The New Jerusalem of the Monianists. Byzantion, vi, 1931, p. 421.
Messenger Lectures (Cornell University) (to be published shortly).
Grdgoire, H, Du nouveau sur la kiirarchk de la secte montaniste d'^apres une inscription
grecque trauvie pres de Pkiladelpkk en Lydk. Byzantion, n, 1925, p. 329.
Notes ipigrafhiqueSy ib. vin, 1933, p. 49.
de Labriolle, P. La crise montaniste. Paris, 1913.
Les sources de F Mstoire du Montanisme. Fribourg (Suisse), Paris, 1913.
Schepelern, W. Der Montanismus und die phrygischen Kulte. Tubingen, 1929.
{e) Gnosticism and tke Church
For Irenaeus and Hippolytus : see above.
Schmidt, C. Pistis Sophia. (Critical edition of the Coptic text) Hauniae, 1925.
Eoptisch Gnostische Schriften. (Includes Pistis Sophia.^ the two Books of Jeu
and an anonymous work from the Askew MS in the B.M. and the Brace MS
in the Bodleian.) Leipzig,' 1905..
Bousset, W. Haupiprobleme der Gnosis, Gottingen, 1907.
773
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV
Burkitt, F. C. Tke Church and Gnosis. Cambridge, 1931.
Faye, E. de. Gnostiques et gnosticisme. Itude critique des documents du G nos ticisme
chritien aux et 111 ^ sihcies,
von Harnack, A. see above, p. 768.
Horner, G. Fistis Bophia literally translated from the Coptic. London, 1924.
Schmidt, C. Plotins Stellung scum Gnosticismus und kirchlicken Christentum. (T.U.
voL XX.) Leipzig, 1901.
Volker, W, Sl^ellen zur Geschichte der christUchen Gnosis, Tubingen, 1932.
(/) Syriac-speaking Christianity
Addai, The Doctrine of Addai the Apostle, Syriac Text with English translation and
notes by G. Phillips. London, 1876.
Aphraates. Ed. W. Wright. Homilies of Aphraates^ the Persian Sage. VoL i
(all published). The Syriac Text. London-Edinburgh, 1869. Ed. J. Parisot,
Patrologia Syriaca, Pars i, Tomus i (Syriac text and French trans.), Paris, 1 894,
Tomus n, pp. I“489 (containing Horn. 23 and Indexes), 1907.
Bardesanes. Ed. F. Nan. Patrologia Syriaca, Pars i, Tomus ii, pp. 490-65 8. Paris.
1907.
Ephraem Syrus. Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bar daisan. 2 vols. ed.
C. W. Mitchell (completed by A. A. Bevan and F. G. Burkitt). London,
1912-1921.
Overbeck, J. J. S. Bphraemi Syri, Rahulae Episcopi Edesseni, Balaei aliorumque opera
selecta. Oxford, 1865.
Kraeling, C. H, A Greek Fragment of Tatianas Diatessaron from Dura edited with
facsimile, transcription and introduction. Studies and Documents, edd. K. Lake
and S. Lake, No. in. London, 1935.
Baumstark, A. Geschichte der syrischen Literaiur, Bonn, 1922.
Burkitt, F. C. Early Eastern Christianity. London, 1904.
Evangelion da-Mepharreshe. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1904.
Euphemia and the Goth. Text and Translation Society. London, 1913.
St. Ephraim* s Rotations from the Gospel. Texts and Studies, vii. No. 2. 1901.
Cureton, W. Ancient Syriac Documents. London, 1 864.
(^) Mani and the Manichees
(i) Editions of Original Texts
{a) Central Asian.
Andreas, F. C. and W. Henning. Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-
Turkestan, I--IIL Berl. S.B. 1932-4.
Bang, W. Manichdische Erzdhler. Museon, xliv, 1931, p. i.
Manichdische Laien-Beichispiegel. Ib. xxxvi, 1923, p. 137.
Manichdische Hymnen. Ib. xxxviii, 1925, p. i.
Bang, W. and A. von Gabain. Turkische Turfan-Texten. Berl. S.B. 1929, p. 411.
Chavannes, E. and P. Pelliot. Un traiti manichien retrouvi en Chine. Journ.
Asiatique (Serie 10), xviii, 1911, p. 499; (S6rie ii), i, 1913,. p. 261.
Henning, W. Ein manichdischer kosmogonischer Hymnus. Gott. Nach. 1 93 2, p. 2 1 4.
Qe hurt und Entsendung des manichdischen Urmenschen. Ib. 1933, p. 306.
Ein manichdisches Henochbuch. Berl. S.B. I 934 > P* 3 *
Ein manichdisches Bet- und Beichtbuck. Abh. I 937 >
774 BIBLIOGEAPHY : . . ,V' ■
von Le Coq, A, TUrh'seie MamcMim 'ms CMtsch /--///. BerL AWi. 1912^ 1919,
;I922; . .
•— Em mmuMmhs Buck-Fmgmeni^ mi .Chmch, Festsckriit Thomsen* . .
dargebmdit. Leipzig, 1912^ p. 145.
— — " Em cknstikhs und em mmichiisches . Mmmcriftjmgmmt . in turhhckir
Bfmche am Turf an. BerL S,B* 1909, p. 1202,
KokiurMschs am Turf an. Berl* S.B. 1909, p, 1047*
MnBer, F. W. K. Handsdrifien-Rme am Turf an ML BerL S*B. and Abh. 1904.
— - E.in Doppe Hiatt aus etnem mankhaisden HymnenSud {Mairnarndg). BerL
■ Abh. 1913, p. 3.'
— ~ line Hermas SieUe in mankMisckir Fersim. Berl. S.B. 1905, p. 1077.
Hqfstaat eines hguren-Kmigs. Fesfechrift' V,. Thoiiisen. .'-dargebraclit,
Leipzig, 1912, p. 207, ■
Salemann, C. Ein Brudstiik (sk) mmkMiscken Sdriftmms im Jsmiischm Mmmm.
M6moires de FAcad. Imp. des Sciences de St P6tersbourg, 1904.
— ' — . Mankkaka, /, Ilf IF. BuB* de FAcad. Imp. des Sciences de St P^tersbourg,
1907, p. 175; 1912, p. I. . ^ ^
Manidaisde Studkn L M^moires de I’Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St P<^ters-
bourg, 1908.
Waldschmidt, E. and W. Lentz, Dk Steiiung Jesu im MmkkMismm. BerL Ablu
1926, p. 3.
— — MankMiscke Dogmatik aus dinesisdien und iranisdm Texten. BerL ,S.B.
1933, p. 480.
(i) Captkn
AUberry, C. E. C. J Mankkaean Tsalm'^Bmky 'Bt 11 . Stuttgart, 1938.
Budge, Sir E. A. W, Coptic Martyrdoms in ike Diakct of Uppr Egypt. London,
1914.
Mankhaische HomiHen.
Schmidt, C. and H. J. Polotsky. Ein MankFund in Jegypiin. BerL S.B. 1933, p* 4*
Schmidt, C., H. J. Polotsky and A. Bohlig. Kepkaiaia^ Lieferungen i-S, Stuttgart,
1935-^7.
(ii) Ancient Authorities
Beeson, C. H. Hegemonius^ Acta Arckelau Leipzig, 1906.
Brinkmann, A. Alexander Lycopolitanus contra Mankhaeos. Leipzig, 1895.
Casey, R. P. Berapion of^ Tkmuis, Against the Mankhees. (Harvard Theological
Studies, XV.) Cambridge (Mass.), 1931.
Fltigel, G. Mank seine Lehre und seine Bchriften^ aus dem FihrisL Leipzig, 1862.
HoB, K, Epiphanius, Bd. Ill in Gr. Chr. Schr. (see above). Panarion 66.
de Lagarde, P. A. Titus Bostrenus contra Mankhaeos^ graece, id. syriace, Berlin, 1859
(reprint 1924).
MitcheB, C. W. 8t Ephraim^ s Prose Refutations of Maniy Marcion^ and Bardaisan.
VoL I, London, 1912. Vol. ii (completed by F. C. Burkitt and A. A, Bevan),
London, 1921.
Pognon, H. Inscriptions mandaites des Coupes de KhouaMr. Paris, 1 898. Appendix II t
Extraits du Livre des Scholies de Theodore bar Khouni, p. 125.
Sachau, E. ALBiruni: Chronology of Ancient Nations. London, 1879.
Zycha, J. Augustinus, Bcripia contra Mankhaeos (Opera, sect. 6, pars l et 2), in
C.S.E.L. xrv, 1891—2.
For the formulas of abjuration c£ Appendix Monumentmim ai Rim^itioms
Ckmentims. ^Migne, P.G. .1, 'CoL 1461 and Methodius, tw mr
dpvqxrem. Migne, P.G* c, coL 1321.
775
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV
(iii) General
Alfaric, P. Les £critures mankkiennes, 2 vols. Paris, 1918.
Bardy, G. Manickitsme, Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, vol. 9, p. 1841,
■ ./''Paris,.' I926....'.
Baur, F. C. Das manickaiscke Reiigionssystem. Tubingen, 1831; reprinted Got-
tingen, 1928,
de Beausobre, I. Histoire critique de Mamchie et du Manichiisme, VoL i, Amsterdam,
1734: voL II, Amsterdam, 1739.
Q. The Religion of the Manichees, Cambridge, 1925.
Christensen, A. U Iran sous les Sassanides, Paris, 1936. Chapter iv.
Cumont, F* Reckerckes sur le Manichiisme, Paris, voL i, 1908; vols. ii, in, 1912.
Kessler, K. ManL F or sc hungen uber die manickaiscke Religion. Berlin, 1889.
von Le Coq, A. Ckotscko. Berlin, 1911.
Die buddkistiscke Spatantike in Mittelasien. Pt. ii. Die manichaischer Minia-
. ; turen. Berlin, .1923. ,.
Njberg, H. S. Forsckungen fiber den Manickdismus. Zeitschr. f. d. neutestamentl.
Wissensch. XXXIV, 1935, p. 70.
Polotsky, H. J. P.W. Supplementband VI, p. 241.
Reitzenstein, R. and H. H. Schaeder. Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran
und Grieckenland. luti-pzig, 1926.
Schaeder, H. H. Review of C. Schmidt and H. J. Polotsky, Bin Mani-Fund (see
above). Gnomon, ix, 1933, p. 337.
Manickdismus. Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, in, Tubingen,
1929, p. 1959.
— — Urform und Fortbildungen des manickdiscken Systems. Leipzig, 1927*
von Wesendonk, O. G. Die Lekre des Mani. Leipzig, 1922,
Williams Jackson, A. V. Re sear ekes in Manickaeism. New York, 1932.
(i) Ckristianity and tke Roman State
(See also Bibliography to chap, xix.)
von Gebhardt, O. Ausgewdklte Mdrtyreracten und andere Urkunden aus der Fer-
folgungszeit der ckristlicken Kircke. Leipzig, 1902.
Knopf, R. Ausgewdklte Mdrtyrerakten. Ed. 3 by G. Kruger. Tubingen, 1929.
Owen, E. C. E. Some autkentic Acts of tke early Martyrs translated witk notes and
introductions. Oxford, 1927.
Preuschen, E. Analecta. Kiirsure Texte zur Gesckickte der alten Kircke und des
Kanons^ 2nd ed. i. Teil. Staatund Ckristentum bis auf Konstantin. Tubingen,
1909.
Riiinart, T. Acta Martyrum. 1690. Later edition, Ratisbon, 1859.
Allard, P. Histoire des Persecutions pendant les deux premiers siecles. Ed. 3, Paris, 1 903.
Histoire des Persecutions pendant la premUre moitie du troisibme siecle. Ed. 2,
Paris, 1894.
Les dernieres Persecutions du troi si erne siecle. Ed. 2, Paris, 1898.
Le Ckristianisme et P Empire romain de Ndron d Tklodose. Ed. 9, Paris, 1925.
Bouche-Leclercq, A. V intolerance re ligieuse et la politique. Paris, 1917.
Cadoux, C. J. Tke Early Ckurck and the World. Edinburgh, 1925,
Callewaert, C. Les premiers Ckritiens furent-ils persecutes par edits genlraux ou par
mesures de police! Rev. hist, eccies. ii (1901), p. 771; iii (1902), pp. 5, 324,
601 [and see ib. xii (1911), pp. 5, 633; Ren. quest, hist, lxxiv (1903), p. 28;
ib. Lxxvi (1904), p. 5; ib. Lxxxii (1907), p* 5]* ^
Canfield, L. H. Tke early Persecutions of tke Christians. Columbia University-
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. lv, No. 2. New York, 1913.
BISLI 0 GRA:PHY
770
Conrat, M, Die Ckrisiemerfoigungin. im mmmhen Rmhi mm Ktanipmiie des
Juruten. Leipzig^ 1897.
Costa^ G. Religme i poHtka mir impro r§mam, Turin, 1923 (cf. p. 794).
Fracassini, U. D impero e U erhtimesmo- da Nerone a Cosiantim, Perugia, 1913..
Guerin, L. £inde sur ie fondemeni jmridifue des persicutims dirigies emtn ks
ckritkm pendant ks deux premiers sieeiis de min ire. Nouvelle Rev, liist. du
droit fran^ais etettanger, XIX, 1895, pp, 601,, 714. ,
Hard;/, E. G. CMsdamty and th Roman Qmernmmt. London, 1894, Ed. 2.
1906. Reprint of isted. 1925.
Last, H. The Btuiy ef the ^Persecutions? J.R.S. xxvii, 1937, p. So,
Leclercq, H. Droit persicuieur. Diet, d’arch. cliret et de liturgie, iv, 2"**, partie,
1921, coll. 1565-1648 (witli full bibliograpliy).
Linsenmayer, A, Die Bekdmpfung des Chrlstentums durck den romlsckm Staaty etc,
Mianicli, 1905. ,■
Manaresi, A. D mpero romano-e ii mstianesimo, Mutiny 4..
Meyer, E. Unsprung und Anfmge des Ciristeniumsy voL in, pp,. 310 ryf. Stuttgart-
■■ Berlin, 1923.
Mommsen, T, Der Religionsfrepe! nach romischem Reckt, H.Z. lxiv (N.F. xxviii),
i%^Qyp, ^%c^\f=^Qisamme!te BckriftenyWiyp, ■ '
Neumann, K. J. Der romheke Btaainnidie ai/gemeine Kircie. YoL i, Leipzig, 1890.
Ramsay, W. M, Tie CMrck in th Roman Empire hforeA.n, 1 70, Ed. 7, London, 1903,
Waking, |. P, Le crime rltuei reproc hi mx chritiens du lie sleek* Brussels, 1925.
(i) The West
Tertulliak. ^ae supersunt omnia, ed. F. Oehler. 3 vols., Leipzig, vol i, 1B33;
voL n, 1854; voL in, 1851.
In C.S.E.L. vol. XX (1890). Edd. A. Reifferscheid and G. Wissowa {De specs.
DetdoloL Adnat. De test. anim. Scorpiace. Deorat. De Bapt. De Pudic. De
jejun. De anima) and vol. xlvii (1906), ed. A. Kroymann {De Pat. De carnts
res. Adv. Herm. Adv. Faient. Adv. omnes kaer. Adv, Praxean. Adv. Marci?).
Separate editions: De Paenitenila and de Pudkitia, ed. G. Raoschen, Fhrlkgium
Pairlstuumy Ease, x, Bonn, 1915; De Baptismo, in same series Fasc. xi, Bonn,
1916, and by J. M. Lupton, Cambridge, 1908; De Praescripikm Hair, in
Fimkgium Patristkum, Fasc. iv, by J. Martin, Bonn, 1950; De Tesimonk
Anlmae, by W. A. J. C. Scholte, Amsterdam, 1934.
For tbe Apologetkumi tbe latest edn is by J. Martin, Fkrikgium Pairistkum, Fasc.
Yi, Bonn, 1933. See also the edition of J, E. B. Mayor with English translation
by A. Souter, Cambridge, 1917, and text and Eng. trans. by T. R. Glover
(Loeb), 1931. Cf. J. P. Waltzing, Texte itaMi d^apres k Codex FuMemis in
Mbl, de k Fac. de philos. et lettres de FUniversit6 de Li^ge, Fasc. xxn, 1914;
Texte itabli ddpris la double tradition manusertie (with literal translation),
ib. Fasc. xxiii, 1919. He has also published (with A. Severyns) a text and
French trans. (Bud6), 1929, and a Commentaire analytifuiy grammatical et
iistofifue. Paris, 1931. R. Heinze, TertuUiam Apohgetkum, Berkhte tiber
die Verhandl- d. Kdn. Sachs. Gesell. d. Wiss. zu Leipzig, PhiL-Hist Ki ixn,
1910, p. 281.
There is an Eng. trans. of TertuUian by P. Holmes in The Jnte-Nkem Christian
Library, vok vii (1868), xi (1869), xv (1870) and xviii (1870), and there
are valuable recent translations by A. Souter of Concerning tie ResurrectioM of the
Flesh, London, 1922; of Against Praxeas, London, 1919; Concerning Prayer
and Concerning Baptism^ London, 19x9. T, H. Bindley has translated On the
Testimony of the Sou! and On the * Prescription^ 0/ Heretics, London, 1914.
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV, AND XV 777
CypRiANus. opera ed , G. Hartel. G,S,E,L, voL in in 3 parts. Vienna,
i868-»i87i.
There are separate editions of the DeLapsis, rec. J. Martin, Florikgium PatrisHcum^
Fasc. XXI, Bonn, 1930, and of the De unitate ecclesiae^ rec. E. H. Blakeney,
London, 1928.
There is an English translation of the letters in J Library of Fathers of the Holy
Catholic Church, Oxford, 1 844 and of the treatises in the same Library, Oxford,
183 9 : R. E . Wallis translated the letters and treatises in The Ante-Nicene Christian
Library, ^111 and xni, Edinburgh, 1868, 1869. Canon Bayard has trans-
lated the letters into French, 2 vols., Paris, 1925, and T. A. Lacey has pub-
lished, in English, Belect Epistles of St Cyprian treating of the Episcopate,
London, n.d.
Liber Pontificalis, ed. Th. Mommsen. Pars i. Berlin, 1898 (containing St. Peter
to Pope Constantinus fyis).
Minucius Felix. Octavius, ed. by C. Halm in C.S.E.L. vol. ii, 1867.
Text:}. P. Waltzing, Leipzig, 1912: his edition and commentary, Bruges, 1909.
English translation by G. H. Rendall in Loeb Classical Library, Loridon, 1931,
and by J. H. Freese, London, n.d.
Novatian. On the Trinity, ed. W. Yorke Fausset, Cambridge, 1909. English trans-
lation by H. Moore, London, 1919.
Cyprian: his life, his times, his work, London, 1897.
Buonaiuti, E. II cristianesimo neiP Africa romana, Bari, 1928.
von Harnack, A. Das Le ben Cyprians von Pontius, Die erste christHche Biographte.
T.U. XXXIX. Leipzig, 1913.
Koch, H. Cyprianische Untersuchungen, Bonn, 1926.
Langen, J. Geschichte der romischen Kirche bis zum Pontifikate Led* s L Bonn, 1881.
Lortz, J. Tertullian als Apologet, 2 vols., Munster, 1927-8.
Monceaux, P. Histoire Httiraire de P Afrique chrMenne. Vol. i (Tertullian), vol, n
(Cyprian). Paris, 1901, 1902.
Moricca, U. Storia della Letteratura latina crlstiana, Vol. i, Turin, 1925.
778
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER XVI
THE TR. 4 NSITION TO LATE CLASSICAL ART
L GsHERAi . . . .
Tlie reader siioald consult tke Bibliography to Chapter xx in VoL xi, pp. 942-44.
Rivoira, G, T. Rmm drckiiecture^ Oxford, 1925.
Robertson, D. S. J Hsndhok $/ Greek and Reman arcMticture. Cambridge, 1 929.
La RcMltmra Rmma, 2 ¥ois. Florence, 1923-26,
— — Indent Rme. ,2 vols. London, 1929.
■ IL;„ Special Peeiops
{d)' ' From Septmlm Bemrm to Elagabalm
Bartoccini, R, U areo fuadrifronte del Bemrl a Lepds. Africa ital. iv, 1931, p. 32.
Bendinelli, G. li monuminto' sepokrale degli JurelL .Mon, Ant. xxfi!!, 1922-23,
p. 2S9.
von Gerkan, A. Die Entwkkiung des grossen Tempels von BaalbeL Corolla flir
L. Cnrtks, Stuttgart, 1937, p. 53.
RodenB^aldt, G, . Smiensarhpkage. Rom. Mitt, xxxviii-ix, 1923-24, p. i. .
Watxinger, C. and K. Wulzinger. Damaskus^ dk antike Stadt, Berlin., 1922. ,
Weigand, E* Baalbek^ Datkrung mi kumigesckichtlkhe Btelimg seiner Mauien.
Jahrb. f. Knnstwissenschaft, 1924, pp. 79 sqq, and 165 sqq.
Wirth, F. Mmueh WmdmaknL Berlin, 1934.
{F) From Alexander Severus to the Accession of Diocletian
Albizzati, C. Fetri dorati del ter%o secolo d. Cr. Rom, Mitt xxix, 1914, p. 240.
Alfdidi, A. DkVorherrschaft ier Fannonkr in Rmerrelche, 25 Jahre Rdm.-Germ.
Koiamission, Berlin, 1930, p. ii.
Dk Ausgestahung des monarchtschen Zeremonklis am romtschen Kalserhofe.
Rdm. Mitt. xLix, 1934, p. 3.
Garger, E. TJntersuchungen %ur romtschen Bildkomposition. Jahrb. d. Knnsthist.
Wien, IX, 1935, p. i.
Herzfeld, E. Am Tor mn Askn, Berlin, 1920.
L’orange, H, P. Siudkn xur GescMckte des spatanftken Porirats, Oslo, 1933.
Rodenwaldt, G. Ara Pads und Vitale, BJ. 133, 1928, p. 228.
Der ludomsische Scklacktsarkopkag, Antike Denkmaler, iv, X929, pp. 61 sqq,
(Tafel 41).
Portrats amf spdtrSmisckn Sarkopkagen, Zeits. £ bild. Knnst, xxxiii, 1923,
p. 119.
— — Zur KmstgescMckte der Jahre 220-270. J.D.A.I. li, 1936, pp. 82 sqq,
Rostovtzeff, M. Dura and the problem of Parthian Art, Yale Class. Stud, v, 1935,
pp. 155-301.
Strong, E. Apotheosis and After-life, London, 1915.
if) From Diocletian to Constantine
Cecchelli, C. Studi e scoperte italime sulF archeologia e f arte del tardo Impero.
Istit di Studi Romani. Rome, 1938.
Delbriick, R. Antike Pmfhyrwerke. BerKn, 1932.
Spdtaniihe KaiserforttMs, Berlin, 1933. ,
TO CHAPTER XVI 779
Egger, R. Btudt e scoperte austriacke suIP archeologia e /’ arte del tarde Impero.
Istit di Studi Romani. Rome, 1938.
Gerke, 'F. rPetrus md Pauhs. Riv. d. arch, crist x, 1933, p. 307.
Die ckristlichen Sarkopkage der mrkonstantiniscken Zeit, Studieii 2. spatant.
Kunstgesch. herausgeg. von Lietzmann und RodenwaMt, x, Berlin, 1938.
- — ~ Studien viur Sarkopkagpiastik der theodosianiscken Renaissance, i. Rom,
Quartalsschrift, xLii, 1934, p. i.
Hinks, R. ^r/. London, 193$.
— — Raum und Fidcke im spatantiken Relief, Arch. Anz. 1936, p. 238,
de Jerphanion, P. G, Studi e scoperte francese suIP archeologia e T arte del tardo
Kahler, H. ' Zwei Sockel eines TriumpMogens in Boboligarten in Florenz, Berlin,
I
Kaschnitz-Weinberg, G. Spdtrdmische Portrdts, Die Antike, ii, 1926, p. 361,
Einch, K. F, U arc de triomphe de Salonique, Poih,
Krencker, D. and E. Kruger. Die Trierer Kaiserthermen, Augsburg, 1929.
Das romische Trier, Berlin, 1923.
Laqueur, R., H. Koch and W. Weber. Probleme der Spdtanti he, Stuttgart, 1930.
Lawrence, M. 8tudi amerkani sulP archeologia e P arte del tardo Impero. Istit. di
StudiRomani. Rome, 1938.
Lietzmann, H. Das Problem der Spatanti he, Berl. S.B. 1927, p. 342.
L’orange, H. P. Zum Portrdt des Kaisers Diocletian, Rom. Mitt, xliv, 1929, p. 1 80,
— — Zum romiscken Portrdt friihkonstantinischer Zeit, Serta Rudbergiana, Oslo,
1931, P* 36-
Mauris c he Auxilien im Fries des Konstantins bogens, Symb. Osl. xin, 1934?
p. 105.
inmctus imperator, Symb. Osl. xiv, 1935, p. 86.
Niemann, G. Der Palast Diokletians in Spalato, Vienna, 1910.
Riegi, A. Die spdtrdmische Kunstindustrie, Vienna, 1927, (New impression of the
original edition of 1901.)
Rodenwaldt, G. Fine spdtantike Kunststrdmung in Rom, Rom. Mitt, xxxvi-vii,
1921-22, p. 58.
Der Be Igrader Cameo, J.D.A.L xxxvii, 1922, p. 17.
Biudi e scoperte germaniche sulP archeologia e P arte del tardo Impero, Istit.
di Studi Romani. Rome, 1937.
von Schlosser, J. Praeludien, Berlin, 1928.
von Schonebeck, I. Bin christlicher Sarkophag aus St Guilhem, J.D.A.L xlvh,
1932, p. 97.
Der Mailander Sarkophag und seine Nackfolge, Studi di arch, crist. x, 1935.
Die christliche Sarkophagplastik unter Konstantin, Rom. Mitt, li, 1936,
p. 238.
Weigand, Ed. 1st die fruhchristliche Kirchenanlage hellenistisch oder rdmischf
Forsch. u. Fortschr. ix, 1933, p. 45 S.
Wiegand, Th. Palmyra. Berlin, 1932.
Wilpert, G. I sarcofagi cristiani antichi, 2 vols. Rome, 1929-1932.
780
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER XVII ■
: THE LATIN LITERATURE OF THE: WEST FROM' ,
THE'ANTONINES TO
L Gbmeral Works on Latin Literature (Pagan and Ck&istian) ,
Full bibliographies of editions and works on' the various authors discussed in this
chapter are given in the large general literary histories of Schanz and Teuffel, and
in the HisiGtre of de Labriolle mentioned below. With a few exceptions only works
not mentioned there are given here. For texts of the Christian Latin writers see
(besides those mentioned below) - Fairohgta Laima^. and the Corpus Seriprnmm
Eccksiastkorum Laiimrum; for thc' lives of the -writers see St Jerome, Li hr de
viris iniusirihs: Gennadius, Lihr de:mris iniustrlMsi by E. C. Richardson,
Leipzig, 1896.
Amatucci, A. G. (and others)* Africa Rmana, Milan, 19JS*
Sima della ieiieraiura iatina crtsdana* Bari, 1929.'
Buff, J. Wight. A Liierary Etsmj of Rome in ike Siher Age from Tihrius io Hadrian.
London and New^ York, 1927.
Jordan, H. Geschche der a/ichisi/iehn Liieraiur, Leipzig, 1911.
Krtiger, G. History of Early Ckristian Literature in ike First Tkree Ceniuries
(trans, by C. R. Gillett). New York, 1897.
de Labriolle, P. Eistoire de la Buiraiure latine ckritkme. Ed, 2, Paris, 1924.
La riaciton paienne* Paris,' 1934.
Leclercq, H. Manuel d' arc kdologie chrdtienne deputs les origines Jusqu'auviiF sihle.
-Paris, 1907*
Lofstedt, E. Syntactica, Lund, i, 1928, 11, 1933.
Fermisckie Studien zur lateiniscken Sprachkunie und Syntax. Lund, 1936,
[Lofstedt’s works are an invaluable guide to the Latinity of the period. See the index
for most of the authors treated in this chapter, and the bibliography for the author
special discussions of Tertullian.]
Monceaux, P, Eistoire de la literature latine chrdtienne. Paris, 1924.
Eistoire litteraire de FAfrique ckritienne depuis les origines jusqu^a Finpasion
arabe. Vols, i-vn, Paris, 1901-1923,
Norden, E* Die antike Kunstprosa. Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1909,
Raby, F. J. E. A History of Christian Latin Poetry from ike Beginning to the Close of
the Middle Ages. Oxford, 1921,
A History of Secular Latin Poetry in ike Middle Ages. Oxford, 1934.
Terzaghi, N, Storia della Letteratura Latina da Tikerk a Gmstimano. Milan, 1934.
IL The Age of the Antonines
Pronto
For texts see the editions of the Correspondence by S. A. Naber, Leipzig, 1867,
C. R. Haines (Loeb), London and New York, 1919, and E. Hauler (in progress).
Brock, M. D. Studies in Pronto and his Age. Cambridge, 191 1.
Hanshk, R. Die Amrdmng der Brkfsammlung Prontos. Comment. Vindobon.
b 2^93 PR 4 ^- 7 *
Hawes, A. B. Citizens of Long Ago. .New York, 1934, pp. 47'*73.
Pater, W. Marius the Epicurean. London, 1 88 5.
Schmitt, A. Das Bild als Stilmittel Frontos. Munich, 1934
TO CHAPTER XVII
781
Aulus QsUius
SeetlieTeubnertext by C. Hosius, 2 vols. 1903; The Attic Nights of Aulus Geliius^
John C. Rolfe (Loeb), 3 vols. Aulu Gelk, Les Nuits Attiques,txmAz!iiosi,
introduction, and notes by Maurice Mignon, 2 vois. Paris, 1934; A. Gel/ius, Noctium
Atticarum Book /, ed. with introduction and notes by H. M. Hornsby, New York,
Studies in Archaism in Auius Gellius, New York, 19 i2o
Africitas
Sister Wilfrid. Is there an Africitas? Class. Weekly, xxii (Dec. 17, 1928), pp. 73-8
(witii a bibliograpliy). See also Brock, op, pp. 161-261, 338-341.
Apuleius
For texts see the edition of the Metamorphoses by R. Helm, Leipzig, 1913; Apuleius
the Golden Ass, being the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, with an English translation
by W. Adlington (1566) revised by S, Gaselee (Loeb), 1919; The Stor^ of Cupid
and Psyche as related by Apuleius, Qd., L. C. Purser, London, 1910; and ApuUe —
Apologie, F brides, texte 6tabli ettraduit par Paul Vallette {Collection des unwersitds
de France, Les Belles Lettres), Paris, 1924.
Haight, E. H. Apuleius and his Influence (with bibliography). New York, 1927.
Nock, A. D. Conversion, Oxford, 1933. Chap, ix, ‘The Conversion of Lucius,’
pp. 138-55.
Oldfather, Canter and Perry. Index Apuleianus, {Amer, Phil, Assoc, Monographs,
III.) Middletown, Conn., 1934.
Poetry
Baehrens, E. Poeiae Latini Minores, vi. {Fragmenta Poetarum Romanorum,) Leipzig,
1886.
Anthologia Latina, ed. A. Riese. 2 vols. ed. 2, Leipzig, 1894-1906; Supplementum,
cur. E. Lommatzsch, 1926.
Terentianus Maurus, ed. Heinrich KeiL Grammatici Latini, vi. Leipzig, 1874.
Pervigilium Veneris
For texts see Anthologia Latina (ed. A. Riese), No. 200; J. W. Mackail in Catullus
(Loeb), 1912; The Pervigilium Veneris, edited with introduction and notes by Sir
Cecil Clementi, ed. 3, Oxford, 1936 (with an excellent bibliography); Pervigilium
Veneris, edited by J. A. Fort, with a preface by J. W. Mackail, Oxford, X922, and
G. B. A. Fletcher, Notes and Additions to dementi’s Pervigilium Veneris, C.P. xxviii,
1935, pp. 209-16.
Martin, G. Transposition of Verses in the Pervigilium Veneris, C.P. xxx, 1935,
Rand, E. K. Sur le Pervigilium Veneris, Rev. E.L. xii, 1934, pp. 85-95.
Spirit and Plan of the Pervigilium Veneris, Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc, txv,
1934, pp. 1-12.
782,,. : BIBLIOGRAPHY- ■ :
' III. : The. Age of Tii.E Setiri ahb the. Rise of Christian. Latim LiTtmrum
■ (See also section, (i) of the bibliography to Chapters xiis.~xv.) ■
T^riml/im
TerMliian^ jipi}kg^ md De SpecMcuHs^ edited and translated into English by
T. R. Glover (Loeb), 1931.
De praescriptime kaeretkorum^ texte lati'n, traduction fan^aise, introduction et index,
par P. de .LabrioIIe. Paris, 1907.
Tifiuiliam JpQkgeikum, Bonn, 1933..
Tertullimi de testimonk mimae USer cum fraefatime^ translailme^. admiaiimiiMS,
ed. W. A. J. C. Scholte, Amsterdam, 1934,*
Hoppe, H. De Sermone Teriuiiianee ^aes times Sekciae, Mtrbu.rg, .1897.
Syntax and Siii des Teriuiiian. Leip2.ig, 190,3,
Schrijnen, J. Li htm ckriikn depenu iangue mmmme. Rev. .E. L* xii,: 1934,,
p.96.
Shortt, C. de L. Tke Induence qf Fhiimopky m the Mini ef Tertuiiian, - Lond.os, 1933*
Perpetun and Feikitas
Robinson, J. .A. Texts and Studies^ i. No. .2, London, 1891. '
Fan Beeic, C. I. M. I. Passk sanctarum Perpetuae et Feikitstis, Nim.wegen, 1936.
Minucius Felix
Minucius Felix ^ mith an English translation by G. H. Ren.d.al], based on an
onprinted version by W. C. A. Ker (Loeb), 1931.
M. MinucH Feikis Octavius^ recensnit etpraefatns est Herni. Boenig. Leipzig, 1903.
— , ed.' P.. Wa.lt2ing. Ed. 2, Leipzig, ,1926.
De Jong, J. J, Jpokgeikk in Ckisteniam in den Octopius van Minucius Felix, With
a summary in English. Maastricht, 1935.
Schmidt, G. Minucius Felix oder TertuUim. Leipzig, 1932.
IF. From the Severi to Faierian
Distuha Qatonls
Cf. the various writings of M, Boas, e.g. Die Mpist&ia Catcnis^ VerhandeL der
Icon. Alcademie te Amsterdam, Letterknnde, Nienwe Reeks, xxxni, i, Amsterdam,
1934. For text see J. W. Dulf and A. M. Du IF, Poetae Latini Minores (Loeb),
^ 934 *
Si Cyprian
Bayard, L. Tertuliianus et Si Cyprien, Paris, 1930.
Monceaux, P. St Cyprien^ iSnique de Carthage, Paris, 1914.
Cmmodian
Frank, T, Latin ^antitatwe Speech, A.J.Ph. xniv, 1924, p. 169.
Kiatwijk, A. Fr. van. Lexicon Commodianeumy cum Introductkni de Commodiam niia^
temporibusy sermone, Amsterdam, 1934 (with excellent bibliography).
Stuitevant, E. H. Commodian and Medkpal Rhythmic Terse, Language, ii, 4
(December, 1926).
V. From Vaeeriah to Diocletian
Nemesian
Jnth&kgia Latina^ edidit A. Riese. Foi 11, nos. 883-4,
Caipurnii Skuii et Nemesiam Bucoikay edidit, C. Giarratano. Rome, 191a
TO CHAPTER XVII
783
VI, From Diocletian to Constantine
Amobim
Arnobii aimrsus nationes libri Fll^mc. C. Marchesi* Turin, 1934,
GBhzxio% ArmbeFson csmre.
— — Le Jaiin d^Arnobe. VmSy 1921,
Guinagli, K. Bibiiograpby of Arnobiana, Class. Weekly, xxix, 9 (January 6, 1936),
pp. 69-70.
Lactantius
Piciion, R. Lactance. Paris, 1901,
Rand, E. K. Founders of the Middle Ages. Harvard Univ. Press, 1929, pp. 49-64«
(See also the bibliograpiiy to chap. XIX, p. 789.)
The Historla Augusta
Seriptores Historiae Augustae, tdi. E. Hohl, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1927.
Historiae Augustae Seriptores, edited and translated by David Magie (Loeb), 3 vols.
1922-1932.
Baynes, Norman. The Historia Augusta, its date and purpose. Oxford, 1926.
A most judicious review of the question is by Magie, vol. ii (1924), pp. vii-xliv
(with bibliography), witli additions to the bibliography in vol. iii (1932), pp. vii-x.
Baynes (1926) gives a brilliant exposition of his theory, also with an excellent biblio-
graphy. An important utterance is that of de Labriolle {Reaction, p. 338), who rejects
the sceptical view of Dessau, though recommending a proper caution in the use of
the S,H.A. Similarly Terzaghi, op. cit. pp. 452-54. For other works on the
S.H.A. see the General Bibliography, v, b.
784
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER XVIII
LITERATURE^ SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE
EASTERN HALF OF THE EMPIRE
L Geh-EralWoeks
(a) Literaturi mi Culmn
■Geffcken, J.' Der Ausgang ies grkchhch-^rdmischen Hiideniums* Heidelberg,.. 1.920
(a reprint of ed^ i).
Harnack, A. Tke expansim of CMstmmty in the fir$t three centuries (Eng. trans. b?
J. MolFatt). 2 vols, London-New York, 1904-5.
Hatch, E. Tke influence of Greek Idms mi Usages upon ike CMsfian CiurcL London,
1907. ^ .
Hirzel, R. Der Piakg. Vol n, Leipzig, 1895, pp. 334177.
de LabrioUe, P. La reaction patenne, Paris, 1934.
Misch, G.* Gesckkkte der AutoMographie, Band i, Das Aiterium^ pp. 290x77. Die
-reiigiSsi Seihidarsieiitmg und die Beekngesckkhte, Leipzig^Berlin, [1907].
Norden, .E, Die ' anti ke Kunsiprosa. .VoL 11, ed. 2, Leipzig, 1900.
Puech, .A. Histoire de la litt/raiure grecfue chritknne. Vol. .11, Paris, 1928.
Richtsteig, E. Berkhi uher die Literatur %ur sogenannien zweiien BopMsttk aus den
Jahren 1926-1930. Bursian, ccxxxiv, 1932 and ccxxxviii, 1933.
Rohde, E. Der grkc hue he Roman, Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1900.
Schmid, W. and O. Stahiin. Gesckkkte der grieckiseken Litteraiur. ii. Teil, 2. Band,
ed. 6, Munich, 1934.
vonWiiamowitz-Moellendorff, U. Die grkcMsc&e Litteraiur des Aitertums, Leipzig,
1912, pp. 188177.
]}gr Glauhe der Eelknen, VoL ii, Berlin, 1932.
(^) PMlosopky
Bidez, J. Fie de Porpkyre, Ghent, 1918.
Bigg, C. Neoplatonism, London, 1895.
Tke Christian Piatonists of Alexandria, London, 19x3.
Brehier, E. Histoire de la PkUosophie, VoL i, ii, Paris, 1931, pp. 449177.
Dodds, E. R. Select passages illustratwe of Neoplatonism, London, 1923 (trans.) and
1924 (Greek texts).
Praechter, K. Ricktungen und Sckulen im Neuplaionismus (Robert’s Genethliakon,
pp. 105177.). Berlin, 1910.
Ukerwegs Gesckkkte der Pkilosopkk, VoL i, ed. 12, Berlin, r926.
Schissel, O. Das Ende des Platonismus im Altertum, Fulda, 1929.
Theiler, W. Die Forbereitung des Neuplaionismus (Problemata, I). Berlin, 1930.
Whittaker, T. The Neo-platonists. Cambridge, 1901.
Zeller, E. Die Pkilosopkk der Grkchen, VoL in, ed. 5 (a reprint of ed, 4), edited by
E. Weilmann, Leipzig, 1923.
^ts. in P.W. s,vv. Gnosis (Schulthess), Gnosis and Gnostiker (Bousset), Hermes
Trismegistos (Kroll).
(r) Science
Diels, H. Antike Tecknik (pp. 121177.: ‘Antike Chemie’). Ed. 2, Leipzig, 1920.
Duhem, P. Le systeme du mondci histoire des doctrines cosmohgiques de Platon i
Copernk^ VoL 11, Paris, 1914.
TO CHAPTER XVIII ^^5
Heiberg, J. L. Naiu7'wissemckafien, Matkematik tmd Medizin im kiassischen
Altertum, Leipzig, 1920.
Kantor, M. Vorlesungen uber Geschukte der Matkemaiik. VoL i, ed. 3, Leipzig, 1 907.
von Lippmann, E. Entstekung und Jus bmiung der Jichemle, Berlin, 1919;
JBzTiA 1I9 Ein iese-^ und nacksckiage^Buch, Berlin, 1931.
Neuburger, M. GescMchte der Medizin, VoL ii\ Die Medizin in der Ferfaliszeit
Stuttgart, 191 1 .
Zeuthen, H. Q, GesMchte der Mathematik im Altertum, etc. Copenhagen, 1896.
Art in P.W. Aichemie (Riess).
IL Individual Authors
(^2) Poetry
Soterichus, Pisander, TrypHodorus, Zoticus, Nestor of Laranda, and the other
epic poets of tliis period are jkno-wn only by unimportant fragments.
Oppian. Balieutica {ytiiiiikt Cynegetica, which is not by Oppian); ed. F. S. Lehrs
in Poetae Bucolici et Didactiei, P2s6s> (Didot), 1862; ed. P. Boudreaux, Paris,
1908. Text, trans. and notes by A. W. Mair (Loeb). For some new views on
Pseudo'Oppian see W. Lameere, Apamie de Syrie et les Cynigitiques du Ps.~
Oppien, in BulL Institut. hist, beige de Rome,
(b) Literary Criticism and Rhetoric
Hermogenes. Opera, ed. H. Rabe, in Rhe tores Graeci, vol. vi (Teubner), 1913;
Syrianus’ commentaries on Hermogenes, ib. vol. xvi, 1892-3; see Bursian,
cxLii, 1909, pp. 226sqq, and art. sjo, Hermogenes in P.W. (L. Radermacher).
Apsines of Gadara. De arte rhetorica, ed. C. Hammer, in Rhe tores Graeci, yoL i, i,
1894, pp. zijsqq,
Longinus. De arte rhetorica, ed. C. Hammer, ib. pp. iqc^sqq,
(c) The Sophistic Movement
Philostratus. Opera, ed. A. Westermann, Paris, 1849; ed. C. L. Kayser, Leipzig,
1870-1 ; edd. O. Benndorf and C. Schenk! (Teubner), 1893-1902. Imagines,
rec. Semin. Vindob. sodales, Leipzig, 1 893 ; text and trans., A. Fairbanks (Loeb);
Life of Apollonius ofTyana, text and trans., F. C. Conybeare, 2 vols. (Loeb);
Lives of the Sophists, text and trans., W. C. Wright (Loeb).
See also E. Richtsteig in Bursian, ccxxxiv, 1932, pp. j6sqqr, S. Eitrem, Zu
Philostrats Heroikos, Symb. Osl. viii, 1929, p. i, claims that it belongs to the
‘edifying literature’ of the Pythagoreans. Epistles', ed. J. F. Boissonade, Paris,
1842; ed. R. Hercher, in Epistolographi Graeci, Paris (Didot), 1873.
On the life of Apollonius see especially P. BatiflFol, La Paix Constantinienne,
Paris, 1914, pp. 2<)sqq,', A, D. Nock, Conversion, Oxford, 1933, pp. 't,(^^sqq,
{i) The Greek Novel
Heliodorus. Aetkiopka (Theagenes and Charicleia), ed. G. H. Hirschig, in Erotici
Scriptores, Paris (Didot), 1856; text edd. R. M. Ratten bury and T, W. Lumb,
French trans. by J. Maillon, Paris (Bud6), i, 1935, and ii, 1938. There are
several early English translations (e.g. by Abraham Fraunce into hexameters,
1622, 1638, etc.), while the French trans, by Jacques Amyot is ‘peut-etre le
chef-d’oeuvre de radmirable toivain.’
Longus. Pastoralia (Daphnis and Chloe), ed, P. L. Courier with the help of L. de
Sinner, Paris, 1829; ed. G. H. Hirschig in Erotici Scriptores \ ed. A. Kairis,
Athens, 1932; ed. with French trans., introduction, etc., G. Dalmeyda, Paris,
50
C.A.H. XII
,786
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1934. G.TIiomley’s trails, of 1733 revised by J. M, Edmonds (Loeb). See
S. L. WoliF, Th Greek romances , in Eli%ahetkan prose fiction^ Diss. New
YorL 1912. Famous French tans, by Amyot, 1559, 1712, etc.-— '^corrig^e,
complete, etc. par Paul Louis Courier,^ ed.^ 5^ Pads, 1812.
Ckmentinat RecognUwnes^tA.E.. G. Gersdorff, Homiiiae, ed. J. B. Cotelerius,
' reprinted in Migne, Patrol. Graeca, i, col. 1201x77. and n, coL . 25 W*
: Ckmenfmaj ed. P. de Lagarde, Leipzig, 1865. See H. Waltz, Die Pseudo-
: . kkmenimen'^ W. Heintze, Der Ciememroman und seine grkchiscki
and W. . Franlenberg, Die syrischn Clementinen mit griech, Paraikluxt,
in Texte und Untersuchungen zur.Gesch. d. altchristL Lit. xxv, 4, 1904,
XL, 2, 1914, and XLYiii, 1937, and J. Bidez and F. Cumoot, Les Mages
hiidnisdsy Paris, 1938, voL i, pp. 55x77.
Tke Apocryphal Gospeis^ttc. Text and French trans. by Ch. Michel and P. Peeters, voL i
(Protevang. and History of Joseph), Paris, 1911. ■Eng. trans. by M. R. James,
: The Apocrypha! Nem Testameni^OiPmd, 1924 (with good short bibliography).
Acta Aposiokrum Apocrypha s Acta Martyrum^ etc. For texts of these see the principal
: textbooks, such as O, Bardenhewer, Pairohgie, See articles in Herzog-Hauck,
Jn Realencycl. £ protest. Theologie,- x.w. Apok'ryphen, Acta Martyrum, etc.
Methodius. Symposium^ De autexusio^ De mta^ Agimpkon sive de re sum c Hone ^ etc.
Ed. R. Bonwetsch, Leipzig, 1917. See P. Heseler, Zum Bymposkn des Metho-
dius^ Byz, Neugr. jahrb. vi, pp. 95^77. and x, pp. 325x77.
(if) PMksophy
Numekius. Text (a, new collection of the fragments), ed. E. A. Leemans, Brussels,
■^ 937 -' , '■
OaiGEN. (The alleged pa^n philosopher.) See R. Cadiou, La jeunesse i*Origkne
(ch. vii, pp. 231x77.), Pads, 1935, and N. H. Baynes in JM.S. lvii, 1937,
p,' 110x7,:
Plotinus. The Emeads, Text, ed. H* F. Mueller, 2 vols., Berlin, 1878-801 text,
with French trans., introduction and notes, by E. Brdhier, 6 vols., Paris, 1924-
36; German tram, by R. Harder, Leipzig, voL i, 1930, n, 1936; English
trans. by St, MacKenna and B. S. Page, 5 vols. 1926-30 (c£ |. H. Stocks in
J.KB. LI, 1931, pp.
The following is a selection from the considerable literature that has gathered around
the great work of Plotinus:
Amou, R,, Le disirde Dieu dam la phibsopkie de Plotin^ Pads, 1931; Mtiller, H. F.,
Orientalisches bet PhtinosP Hermes, 'xxix, 1914, pp. 70x77.; Br6hier, E., La
pUhsopkie de Plotin^ Paris, 1928; Inge, R., The Philosophy of Plotinus^ ed. 3,
London, 1929; Oppermann, H., Plotins Lehen^ Heidelberg, 1929; R, 1. Witt,
Plotinus^ etc., in C.Q, xxiv, pp. 198x77., and xzv, pp. 103x77. (other recent
publications, analysed by P. Henry, Bulletin Pevue Thlolog,^ Sept.-Dee. 1932);
De Corte, M., Aristote et Plotin^ Paris, 19355 Przyluski, J., Les trots hypostases
dans ITnde et a Alexandrie^ Melanges Cumont, 1936, ii, pp. 925; Henry, P.,
Plotin et POccident, Louvain, 1934, and Recherches sur . , ,/Vi/. perdue de Phtin
publiii par Eustochmsy Paris, 19355 the same writer*s recent paper, Fers la re-
constitution de Pemeignement oral de Plotin^ Bulletin Acad. R. Belg., Classe des
Lettres, 1937, pp, 310x77. makes new approaches to the problem; see also his
forthcoming work, Les itats du texte de Plotin,
PoRPHTRius. Hisior, philos,fragm,y Vita Pythagorae^ De antro nympharuMy De abstin,y
et Ad Marcelhm\ text, ed, 2, A, Nauck, Leipzig, 1886 . — De pkUosopMa ex
oraculis kaurienda^ ed. G. Wolff, Berlin, 1866 . — Isagogiy et In categmas
TO CHAPTER XVIII ^
Arhtot,^ ed, A. Busse, Berlin, 1887.— /^//tf P/«?/:/;??i (prefixed to the text of
Ennead i), Qd.. E. Brehier, Paris, i<^ 2 ^,—^aestiones Homericae, ed. H. Schrader,
Leipzig, i 880“-2 and i890.---*A<5&op/jLa4 ed. B. Mommert, Leipzig, 1907, —
Contra CMstianos, fr. colL A. von Hamack, Berl. Abh. 1916, and new fragments
in Berl. S.B. 1921.— Hcpt dyaXfjLdriiiv et De regressu anim ae ^
Ghent, 1913, as appendix to the Fie de Porphyre, with a bibliography of all
his works (pp. 65 xff .) amounting to 77 titles, of which only 10 or ii survive.
Iamblichus. De Mysteriisy ed. G. Parthey, Berlin, 1857. — Protrepticus, De communi
matkem. scientiay In Nkomachi aritkm. Introd. Text, edd. E. Pistelii and N. Festa
(Teubner), 1888, 1891-4. — De mta Pytkagorka, TqjA, ed- L. Deubner,
Leipzig, 1937.
(/) Science
Mathematics. ' .
Anatolius (an Alexandrian who became bishop of Laodicea in Syria; a polymath
with a preference for music) . Some fragments of his mathematical works in the
ed. V. De Falco (Teubner), 1922.
Diophantus. Aritkmetka, Text, P. Tannery (Teubner), 1893.— Sir T. L Heath,
Diopkantus of Akxandriay^d. Zy QmIox\A%Qy
Pappus. La collection mathimatique. French trans. with introd. and notes, by P Von
Eecke, 2 vols. Paris-Bruges, 1933.
(2) Music.
PoRPHYRius. Kommentar zur Harmonklehre des Ptolemaios. Text, I. During,
Goteborg, 1932.
Alypius. Introductio in Musicam. Text, C. E. Ruelle, Paris, 1895.
Aristides Quintilianus. De muska libri. lTL, Text, A. lahnius, Berlin, 1882.
(3) Geography.
Dionysius of Byzantium. Anaplus Bospori Thracii. Text by C. Muller, Geograpki
graeci minoresy ii, p. 2x7. — C. Wescher, Paris, 1874.
(4) Chemistry, Achemy, the occult sciences.
Ps.-Democritus. Ply ska et Mystka, Text, Berthelot-Ruelle, Alchimistes greeSy
vol. II, p. 41 Xf. (text) and vol. iii, p. 43 xy. (trans.): Les mages hellinisisy vol. ii,
texts edd. J. Bidez and Fr. Cumont, Brussels, 1938.
ZosiMus of Panopolis, Large fragments in Berthelot-Ruelle, ib., passim \ cf. R.
Pjdtztnsttmy PoimandreSy passim, ^tc,
Julius Africanus. Cesti (Kco-rot). A large treatise of a miscellaneous character,
embracing natural history, alchemy, medicine, agriculture, etc. Cf. art. in P.W.
s,v, lulius (47) (Kroll).
{g) History, chronology, apologetics
Herodian. Historiae. Text, L, Mendelssohn, Leipzig, 1883. — K. Stavenhagen,
(Teubner), 1922.
Dexippus. His tori arum fragmenta. Text, L. Dindorf, in Historic! graeci minores.
Vol- 1, Leipzig, 1870, pp. i65xy^.
Dio Cassius. Historia Romana. Text,], Melber, Leipzig, 3 vols., 1890-1928. —
U.P. Boissevain, Berlin, 1895-1901. Text and trans., E. Cary, 9 vols., London;
see art. in P.W. x.e>. Cassius (40), Schwartz.
Julius Africanus. See H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus nnd die byzantiniseke
Chronographie. Leipzig, 2 vols., 1880-98,
Hippolytus. Die Chronik. Ed- R. Helm-Marquardt, Leipzig, 1929,
50-2
781^. BIBLIOGRAPHY.. ■
PoRPHYRius. Ckrmka (a source used by Eusebios), .Fragsi. ed. C, Muller^ in
F.H.Gn voi pp. 688xff.
.Eusebius. All Ids principal works (save ■ the Pfdeparaih EmMgeii^a, of wliicli K.
Mras is preparing an edition) have :alread.y been pubJislied in tbe great Berlin
Corpus^ Grm^* Cirisd, Sckrifisteikr^ wMch supersedes all previous editions:
Demonstraik emngelka^ ed. Heikelf 1913; Ckrmka^ ed. Karst^ 1911; Cmira
■ Marcelium^ ed^ Klostermann, 1906;. Tkeophania^ ed. Grammanj 1904; Ommas-
ikm^ ed. Klostermann, 1904; the Ecciesiastkai Mkiory^ ed, Schwartz, with the
Latin translation of Ruhnos (ed, Mommsen) on the opposite page, 3 vois., 1903-
9; an English trans. by Kirsopp Lake and J. E. L. Oultoii, 2 vols. (Loeb),
Finally the Vila Cmsianiim and related treatises, ed. Heikel, 1902 (cf, art.
ss* Eusebius in P.W. by Schwartz),. .still retain their value, even after the flood of
modern literature upon them (see, Ibr example, R. Laqueur, EuseMus a!s
Biskrikif siiner Zeik Berlin, 1929, and 'E, Peterson, Der Mm&dekmus als
,, pDiiiischs ProMem^ Leipzig, 193 5, pp. .7 1 xff.) ; no attempt can be made here to
give any review of tliis literature, and in any event the career of Eusebius passes
beyond the date of this history. It should be added that upon the works of
Origen and Eusebius the reader will And in the relevant chapters of H. Lietz-
manii’s admirable GiscMche der aken Kircke^ vols, n and iii, masterly and
lucid appreciations.
Such are the surviving works; to give some idea -of what is imssiiig, w^’e may
mention thecompietelossof the works of the head of die theological and ezegedcal
school of .Antioch, Lucian, tlie teacher of Arius, and especially of the ap&hgia for
Christianity that he presented to the emperor Maximin. On Us importance see
A. Hamack, Lucian der Mdreyrety in Herzog-Hauck, R^aiencycL /. praiest.
TheoUghy xi, pp. 654xyy., and the recent study by G, Bardy, Jkcherchts sur
S, Lucien d*Antmche^ Rev. E.A. xzxviii, 1936, p. 481 . See also H. Lietzmann,
Geschichte der alien Kirche^ voL in, 1938, pp. \ ^\sqq, (for Eusebius).
(i) Mucellamms
Diogenes Laertius. De pkiiosopkorum mils. Text ed. Cobet, Paris, 1878. No new
edition has yet replaced this faulty text, but considerable portions have been
published with critical apparatus, notably in H. Diels’ Forsekraiihn See too La
Fie de Pytkagore^ A. Delatte, Brussels, 1922; E/uVm Epktuiae, ed. F. vonder
Muehll, Leipzig, 1922. There is an Eng. trans. by R. D. Hicks, 2 vols. (Loeb).
Aeeian. Farias Mstoriae et Historia animaUum^ ed. Hercher (Teubner), 1 864 and
1867; Epistolaem Epistolographi Graeci, ed. Hercher, Paris (Didot), 1873.
Athenaeus. DeipnosopMstae, Text, ed. Kaibel, 3 vols. (Teubner), 1887-90; Eng,
trans. by C. Burton Gulick, vols. i-v (Loeb), See Animadversimes inAtkenmum^
J, Schweighaeuser, 9 vols. Strassburg, 1801-7.
TO CHAPTER XIX
789
CHAPTER XIX
THE GREAT PERSECUTION
This Bibliograpliy is supplementary to the Bibliographies for Chapters vi/ix,
and xin-xv; see too the Bibliographical notes in N. H. Baynes, Constantine the
Great and the Christian Churchy British Academy: Proceedings, voL xv, 1929.
As in the Bibliography to Chapters xiii-xv the following abbreviations are used:
Corpus Scriptorum EccIesiasticorum Latmorum,
Gx.Chr,%c]ii,==^GriechischeChristIicheSehrifsteIIer.
"VXJ,— Texte und Untersuchungen,
A. Ancient Sources
(a) Texts
For collections of Acts and Passions of the Martyrs see Bibl. to Chapters xiii-v,
iii(4
Arnobius. Adversus NatwneSy ed, C. Marches!. Turin, 1934..
Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History, See Bibliography, above, p. 767. De Martyrihus
Eaiaestinaei printed with the Ecclesiastical History (in vol. 2 of the edition by
E. Schwartz).
For the longer edition of the Martyrs of Palestine in Syriac see
B. Violet, Die paldstinischen Mdrtyrer des Eusebius von Casarea, T.U. xiv,
Heft 4, Leipzig, 1896 (with German translation).
Of the Greek text of this longer — second — edition of the Martyrs of Palestine
H. Delehaye published some fragments in An. Boll, xvi, 1897, p. T13, These
fragments contain the Passion of St Pamphilus and of this text ‘une nouvelle
redaction abregee’ was published by H* Delehaye from Brit. Mus. Add. 36,589,
An. Boll. XXV, 1906, p. 499. This redaction is not included in Schwartz’s text,
cf. An Boll, xxvn, 1908, p. 203.
The Praeparatio Evangelica. Ed. E. H. Giiford. 4 vols. Oxford, 1903.
The Demonstratio Ev angelica, Ed. L A. Heikel. Gr. Chr. Schr., vol. xxiii.
Translations: The Praeparatio Evangelica, by E. H. Gifford, Vol. iii of his edition:
in two parts. Oxford, 1903.
The Demonstratio Evangelica, by W. J. Ferrar, 2 vols. London, 1920.
Lactantius. Opera, Ed. S, Brandt. 2 vols. C.S.E.L. Vienna, 1 890-1893.
De mortibus persecutorum, Ed. J. Pesenti. Turin, 1922.
Translation by W. Fletcher. Ante~Nicene Christian Library, vols. xxi-xxn.
Edinburgh, 1871.
Optatus. Ed. C. Ziwsa. C.S.E.L. vol. xxvi. Vienna, 1893.
Translation by O. R. Vassall-Phillips. London, 1917.
Urkunden %ur Entstehungsgeschichte des Donatismus, Ed. H. von Soden. Bonn,
1913.
Peter, Bp, of Alexandria. Fragments in M. J, Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae\ vol. iv.
Oxford, 1846.
Melitian Schism : the early years.
(i) Canonical Letter of S. Peter of Alexandria. M, J. 'Routh., Reliquiae Sacrae\
vol. IV, Oxford, 1846, pp. 23 sqq.; A. P. de Lagarde, Reliquiae iuris ecclesi-
astici antiquissimae, Greece edidit k, P. de L. Leipzig, 1856, pp. 63899
A Syriac version with additions in Reliquiae iuris ecclesiastici antiquissimae
790
BIBLIOGRAPHY
'Syriaci eSMi A.,R de, Lagarde, Leipzig,. 1-856: Greek translation of these
additions in E. Schwartz, Zur Gisck. ' des Jikanmius. Gdtt. Nach. 1905,
p.'i64.,'
(ii) Documents appended to the Histork Acephak of Athanasius. C£ P, Batiffol,
in B72. Zeits. X, 1901, p. 128.
(iii) Epiphanius, Opera, Ed. G. Dindorf. 5 vols. Leipzig, x859--6^; or in Gr.
Chr. Schr., ed. K. Holl. Vol. in, 1931. Hmt. §68. ^
(iv) Epistola ad Meletium. Routh, Reltfulae Bacrm^, Oxford, 1 846, ¥oL 4, p. 91.
(v) Bell, H. L Jezes and Christians in Egyfi,. London, 1924.
Gregoire, H. Ream! des Imeriptims p^ec^ues chrMennes d\*!sk Mimure, Ease, 1,
Paris, 1922.
lurisprudeMtiae anidusitnianae reiiqmas^ ed. E-. Seckel and B. Kiiebler, ed. 6, foI. 2,
Ease. 2. Leipzig, 1927 (Mankhaean Edict, p. 38 1). For discussion of date
of the edict c£ L. Poinssot in Nemeiks Archives ies Misskm sckmifquis a
iiitirmres^ N.S. voL xxi, Fasc. 8, 1913, at pp. 170-171. ,
(The Letter of Theonas is a forgeij. Cf. P. Batiffol, Bull, crit.vii, tS86, p»:.i55;
A. Harnack, Theol. Literaturzeitung, XI, rB86, coL 319.)
{Pl Wwks m the Bmrees
ArncMus.
Marches!, C. Arm&iam. Atti R. 1 st. Veneto, voL i.xxx:?iii, Parte 2nda,
i92-9> p. 1009.
— Ii Pessimisms di. un apohgista crisiiam, Fegaso, voL 11, Parte i (Florence),
1930. p- 536.
On the construction and compositioii of the apology cf, S. Colombo, Armms Afrs
^ i SMoi sitie Mri Admrsm Natknesr Didaskaleion, N.S. -ix, 1930, Fasc, ,3,
p. I.
Euseim.
Lawlor, H. J. Eusehiana, Oxford, 1912.
Puech, A. Histoire de la iittirature pecque chretienne, VoL iii, Paris, 1930.
Schwartz, E. Art. in P.W. sjc\ Eusebios.
Lactantius. - -
Brandt, S. Vber die duaiistiseken Zusatze und die Kaiseranreden Bet Lactantius,
NeBst etner Untersuchung uber das Leben des Laciantius und die Enistehungs-
perkaitnisse seiner Prosaschriften, Wien S,B. PhiL-hist. Kl. cxvin, 1889 (1892),
Abh. 8; iA czix, 1889, Abh. t ; sb, exx, 1890, Abh. 51 ik exxv, 189X (1892),
Abh. 6 (with altered title).
Pichon, R. Lactanee, Paris, 190X. After reading this book Brandt admitted the
Lactantkn authorship of the De mart, pers, (Cf. j. G. P. Borleffs, Mnern.
(N.S.) Lynx, 1930, p, 223.)
Piganiol, A. Dates mnstantlniennes. Revue d*hist et de philos. religieuses, xii,
1932, p. 360,
(c) The Passions and Acta
For a discussion of early Martyria see A. Harnack, GescL d, akchrlstl. Litter atur
bis Eusebius, Teil ii, Band 11, Leipzig, X904, pp. 463-482. For the publications of
texts of Passions and Acta of the Martyrs it will suffice to refer to the bibliographies in
(i) Bibliotheca hagiographka Latina, z yols.- Brussels,.- 1898-1901.. . Supplement,
ed. 2, Brussels, 19x1. (ii) Bibliotheca hagiopaphka Graeca, Ed. 2, Brussels, 1909.
(iii) Sihliotkeca hagiograpkica Orkntalis, Brussels, 1910.
[In wffiat follows no reference is made to martyrs who ha?e merely hypothetically
been assigned to the period of the great persecution by modern schokrs.j
TO eHAPTER XIX
791
For general studies of martyrs and confessors of particular areas see for the Danubian
provinces, J. Zeiller (see below); for Dalmatia, J. Zeiller (see below); H. Delehaye,
Hainti d^lstrk et de Balmatie, An. Boll, xviii, 1899, p. 369 (for Salonae, An. Boll,
xxio, 1904, p, 5; xxxni, 1914-1919, p. 265; xLvii, 1929, p. 77); id. Saints of
Thrace and Moesk. An. Boll, xxxi, 1912, p. 161; id. Les marfyrs i'lgype. An.
Boll. XL, 1922, p. 5, p. 299; id. Saintsof Cyprus. An. Boll, xxvi, 1907, p. i6r. For
Africa: f, M.orictmXy Histoire iittiraire de rjfri^ue ckritienne^ vol. 3, ch. 2. Paris,
1905.. ; ,
Abitinae, Martyrs of (a.d. 304). See below r.??. Saturninus,
SS. Agape, Chione and Irene. Text: P. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi ix, 1902,
p. 15. Discussion: ib. pp. 3, 67; G. Borghezio, Didaskaleion iv, 1915, p, 245;
and see Delehaye, Les Passions des Martyrs, etc. pp. 1 41— 143.
S. Barkam. A reference to this martyr in a rhetorical plural in Eusebius, HisL eccL
viii, 12, 2 (cf. Delehaye, An. Boll, xl, 1922, p. 309). Text and discussion,
(Delehaye) An. Boll, xxn, 1903, p. 129.
SS. Claudius, Asterius and Neon. Date (23 August, 285) of martyrdom must be false.
Discussion of Latin versions of lost Greek text: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Nuovo
Bull, di arch, crist. x, 1904, p. 17; Studi e Testi, xxvii, 1915, p. 107,
S. Crispina. Text by Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, ix, 1902, p. 23; variant
readings Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist. xi, 1905, p. 255 n. (and cf. ib. x, 1904,
p. 19). Critical discussion of the Acta by P. Monceaux in MiL Boissier, Paris,
1903, p. 383 and Histoire, . . in, pp. 159-161 (cf. Fliche et Martin, Histoire
de r£giise ii, p. 467 n. 6); Delehaye, Les Passions, pp. i lo-r 14.
S. Dasius. Text by F. Cumont, An. Boll, xvi, 1897, p. ii ; discussion, ib. p. 5. See
further Parmentier and Cumont, Rev. Phil, xxi, 1897, p. 143; P. Wendland,
Hermes, xxxiii, 1 898, p. 176. For criticism of this curious Passion see Delehaye,
An. Boll. XXVII, 1908, p. 217; XXXI, 1912, p. 265; Les Passions, pp. 321-328.
For the martyr’s tomb at Durostorum cf. Cumont, An. Boll, xxvii, 1908, p. 369
(sarcophagus at Ancona: ? brought from Durostorum at Avar sack of the town
in A.D. 579).
S. Dioscoros. The Greek original is lost: text in two redactions An. Boll, xxiv, 1905,
321; discussion, H. Quentin, ib. p. 330. Fragments of a Syriac version (with
Latin translation by Mgr Tisserant), An. Boll, xxxix, 1921, p. 333. For dis-
cussion of the Passio: P. Allard in MdL G. Kurtk, Liege, 1908 (inaccessible to
the writer); Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist. xi, 1905, p. 251 n.
Variant readings in a Bodleian MS. (Fell 3) : see Delehaye, An. Boll, xl, 1922,
PP* 324^352*
S. Domnio. On the martyr of Salonae of this name see Delehaye, An. Boll, xviii,
1899, p, 399; ib. xxin, 1904, p. ii; F. Bulic, Bull, di arch, e stork dalmata,
XXI, 1898, p. 1 13; ib. xxiii, 1900, p. 213. The acta are without historical
value: on a possible confused memory of the name of a praeses of Dalmatia
(M. Aurelius Julius a.d. 299) cf. Delehaye, An. Boll, xviii, 1889, p. 403; ib.
XXVII, 1908, p. 75. For the discovery of the sarcophagus of Primus, Domnio’s
grandson, in the basilica at Monastirine cf. Bulic, Nuovo Bull di arch, crist vi,
1900, p. 275.
S. Euplus. Texts: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi xlix, 1928, p. 47, 239. Dis-
cussion: ib. p. I.
S. Fabius. Text: An. Boll, ix, 1890, p, 123 (and see at p. 109). Discussion: Franchi
de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, lxv, 1935, p. 101 (cf. Delehaye, An. Boll, liv, 1936,
p. 300) and see Monceaux, Histoire* . . ni, p. 122.
S. Felix of Thibiuca. Text: An. Boll, xxxix, 1921, p. 247. Discussion: ib. pp. 241,
259. (Cf. ib. XVI, 1897, p. 19.) Monceaux, La Passio Fe/icis* Mtude critique
i
Siir ks relati/s m mariyn ie FiBx^ Mfus Je TkBiuca^ Rev. Arch.
Ser. ¥oL v, 190;, p. 335 (c£ id. Hisi&ire, . . ni, p. 136).
Forty Martyrs of Sebastia. Thongh the Passio may not be aiithenticj it seems that the
Testament of the martyrs is genuine. See Bonwetsch, Nene kircMiche Zeits.
nij 1 892, p. 70; ; Hausleiter^ ib. p. 9781 N, Bonwetsch and R. Seeberg^ Stiidien
znr Gesch. d.Theologie iind Kirche, i,ij ^ ^97 (cf* Boll, xvii, 1898, p. 467);
Franchi de* Cavalieri, Stndi e Tesd, xxii^ 1909, p. 64; ib. xrix, 1928, p. 155.
On the Syrian legend W, Weyh in Bjz, Zeits. xxi, 191 2, p. 76 and on a Coptic
text D. P. Buckie, Bull. John Rylands Library, ti, 1921, p. 332 (cf. An. Boll.
XLi, 1923, p. 176). On Sarin (in the Testament): Cumont, An. Boll, xxv, 1906,
p. 241 and on Zimara ib. xxni, 1904, p. 448.
S. Genesius. On the Genesius legend cf, BerAa von der Lage, ztir Ge^esias-
kgenJej z pts., Berlin, 1898 and 1899. Beilage zuin Jahresbericht der
CkarlotteiiiSchu!e(cf. An.BolL xvni, 1S99, p. r86); P. Roasenda, Didaskalcion
N.S. Yii, 1929, Fasc. 2, p, 93. With the' Genesius legend cf. the Passion of
S. Porphyry the Mime: An. BolL xxix, 1910, p. 258. For possible confusion
TOth S. Genesius of Arles cf. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Stiidi e Testi, txv, 1935,
p. 203, For the name of the martyr at Rome cf. Bull. d. Commiss. arch. com. di
Roma, XXXII, 1904, p. 325, but this may be S. Genesiiis of Arles.
S. Marcellus. For text and discussion see Delehaye, An. Boll xw, 1923, p. 257 (cf.
A. Bonilauri, Didaskalcion, N.S, ix, 1930, , Fasc. r, p. i). A variant text ms
published by M. Denicolai in Didaskaleion, v, 1916, p. 141 (martyrdom dated
to A.D. 29B). The Passio of Cassian is a pure plagiarism and valueless; An. Boll.
xUy p. 276.
[The Passio SS. Marcelli, Petri, etc., defended as authentic by H. Achelis, Dk
Mariyr§hgkn, Berlin, 1900, pp, 173-177, is regarded as **un racconto in-
ventato da cima a fondo’’ by Franchi de’ Ckvalieri, Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist.
XI, 1905, p. 237 at p. 267.]
SS. Maxima, Secundaand Donatilk. Text: An. Boll, ix, 1890, p. no. Discussion:
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, lxv, 1935, p. 75; cf. Delehaye, An. Boll
Liv, 1936, p. 296.
S. Maximilian. Text: Harnack in his Miiiita Ckrisii and Knopf only repeat the text
of Ruinart: texte laisse k ddsirer et devrait etre revue sur les manuscrits.”
Delehaye. Discussion : Delehaye, pp. 104-xio; Monceaux,
Histoire,., in, pp. 1 14-1 18,
SS. Phileas and Philoromns. Discussion ; Delehaye, An. Boll, xl, 1922, p. 299. But
dating on p. 3 1 2 is to be corrected ; the praefecture of Culcianus extended to
May 306; see papyrus re£ in O. W. Reinmuth, Tk F refect of Egypt, Klio
Beiheft 34, Leipzig, 1933, p. 139,
S. Philippus (of Heraclea). It appears that a Greek original has been misunderstood
by the translator of the Passion. Discussion: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi,
XIX, 1908, p. p4; ib. xxvn, 19x5, p. 97; Delehap, An. Boll xxxi, 1912,
p. 243; J. Geffcken, Zmi grmhuehe Afokgeten, Leipzig, 1907, p. 249.
[The Epistle of Psenosiris: this papyrus was thought to have reference to the great
persecution. See A. Deissmann, The Ephtle of Psenosms^ London, 1907 (cf.
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist vni, 1902, p. 1 5); but it should
probably be otherwise interpreted: see W. Cronert, De critici arte in papyris
exercenda § 22 in Raccolta di Scrkti in onore di Giacomo Lumbroso, Milan,
1925, pp. 514-528. Reference due to Dr H. I Bell]
S, Psodus. Text; An. Boll xl, 1922, p. 343. Discussion; Delehaye, ib. p. 314.
Quattuor Coronati. For earlier literature see ZeiHer, tes origines chritimnes dam ks
provinces danuMennes etc, pp. 88 iff. For text and full discussion Delehaye, in
JJJ 8 , Novembris, vol in, Brussels, 1,910, pp. 748 xff., and Les Passions,
TO CHAPTER XIX 793
pp. 328-344^ and cf. L. Duchesne, ilf//. i^arck. et d^MsL XKXi, 1911, p. 231;
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, xxiv, X912, p. 57; Delehaje, Le Quite des
^atre Couronnis d Rome^ kn. Boll, xxxii, 1913, p. 63. For topography cf. F,
Bulic in Bull, di arch, e stork dalmata, xxxi, 1908, p. in (see An. Boll, xxix,
1910, p. 205). N. Vulic in Riv. di arch, crist. xi, 1934, p. 1 56. J, P. Kirsch in
Hist Jahrbuch, xxxviii, 1917, p. 72 denies the authenticity or value of the
Pannonian Passion, but this is an indefensible view: cf. Delehaye, Le Ligendier
remain, -pp. 6 ^
SS. Saturninus, Dativus and companions. Text: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi,
Lxv, 193 5, p. 49. Discussion : ib. p. 3, Gf. Delehaye, Les Passions, pp. 1 14-1 1 6
and An. Boll. Liv, 1936, p. 293.
S. Sebastian, See Delehaye, Le Ligendier romaini Index x.e>.
S, Theagenes (under Licinius). Greek text: Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, xxiv,
1912, p. 179. On the Passion see Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Studi e Testi, xxii,
1909, p, loi; ib. XXIV, 1912, p. 161; ib. xxvii, 1915, p. 116 and A. Ehrhard,
Byz. Zeits. XXII, 1913, p. 500.
S. Theodotus of Ancyra. The Passion until recently was regarded as a valuable
historical source: as such it was discussed at length by Franchi de’ Cavalieri,
Studi e Testi, vi, 1901, p. 9; two texts printed p, 61 ; addenda p. 183. Delehaye
in An. Boll, xxn, 1903, p, 320 treated the whole Passio as a romance; Franchi
de’ Cavalieri replied, Nuovo BuH. di arch, crist. x, 1904, p. 27, but later he
himself published a shorter text, Studi e Testi, xxxiii, 1 9 20, p. i o 5, and on the
basis of that text came to the conclusion that the Passio was a homily and Theodotus
unhistorical. An attempt to distinguish a historical core in the Passio has since
been made by M. Astori in Didaskaleion, N.S. x, 1931, Fasc. 2-3, p. 53.
S. Tipasius. Text: An. Boll, ix, 1890, p. ir6 (and see p. 109). On the legendary
elements in the Passio cf. Monceaux, in Rev. Arch., 4me Serie, iv, 1904, p. 267.
THE PERSECUTION IN GAUL AND BRITAIN
(i) The Theban Legion. Text ed. Krusch in Mon. Germ. Hist., Scriptores Rerum
Merovingicarum iii, 1896, pp. 32-40. The modern literature is considerable:
it will suffice to refer to F. StoUe, Das Martyrium der tkehaischen Legion,
Breslau, 1891 (Bibl. of earlier work at p. in); R. Berg, Der keilige Mauricius
und die thebdiscke Legion, Halle, 1895; P. Bourban, Saint Maurice d"* Agaune
en Suisse etses Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist. iv, 1 898, p. 194; ib. v, 1 899,
pp. 71, 177; ib. XXII, 1916, p. 105; M. Besson, Monasterium Acauense,
Fribourg, 1913; C. Jullian, Notes galio-romaines, 85, Rev. E.A. xxii, 1920,
p. 41; Delehaye, Les origines du culte des Martyrs, Ed. 2, Brussels, 1933,
pp. 86, 3 5 5. For a study of modern views cf. A. Hirschmann, Hist. Jahrb. xiii,
1892, p. 783.
(ii) The Legend of St Ursula and the Virgins of Cologne. For the inscription of
Clematius see F. X. Kraus, Die christUchen Inschriften der Rkeinlande, 1, r 890,
pp. 143 xfy. References to earlier literature in J. Klinkenberg, Studien xur
GescMchte der Kolner Mar terinnen, B.J. 88, 1889, p. 79; ib. 89, 1890, p. 105;
ib. 93, 1892, p. 130; A. Riese, Die Inschrift des Clematius und die kolnischen
Martyrien, ib. 118, 1909, p. 236; H. Friedrich, Die Anfdnge des Ckristentums
etc, im Gebiet des Nieder- und Mittelrheins und der Mosel, ib. 131, 1926, p. 10
(see, in particular, pp. 32-33), and cf. ib. pp. 323-324 (cf. M. Coens, An.
BoB. xLvii, 1 929, p. 89); W. Levison, Das Werden der Ursula Legende, ib.
132,1927,9.1.
(iii) St Alban. W. Meyer, Die Legende des h, Albanus. Abh. G 5 tt. Phil.-hist. KI.
N.F. vin, No. I, Berlin, 1904.
. . B, . Modern Works ..
Allard, P. La pmicuikn di DmiMen- it ie triomph di Pdgitse. z woh.y td. 4,
Paris, 1908. (UncriticaL)
/Indreotti, R. Clora. DidasMeioB, N.S. ix, 1930, Fasc. i, p* 157; Fasc» 2,
р. I.
Augar, F. Die Frau im romisdm CMstenproms. T,U. xxvin, Heft 4, 1905.
(C£ Franclii de’ Cavalieri, Stadi e Test!, txv, X93S, at p. 238.)
.Bardy, G* Les aSjectims d^un pMhsopke paien i'^apres FApoaiticus de Macaire de
Magndsk, Bull. d’Anc. litt. et d’archeoL chret. iii, 1913, p. 9?.
BatifFol, P. Les premiers cir/ikas it ia guerre. In L^Eglise et Ie Droii de Guerre.
Ed. 2, Paris, 1920.
Baynes, N, H, Tm M&tes nn the Great Persecutim. C.Q. xviii, 1924^ p. 189.
(On the Fourth Edict and on the chronology of Book ix of the Church History
of Eusebius; and see Lawlor below,) ,
Belser, J. Zur dkkkttanischn Christenzwfoigung. University of Tubingen Ein-
kdung Programm of March 6, 1891, (Theattem.pt to date several ffiart}Tdom3
to the beginning of Diocletian’s reign has not convi-uced the present writer.)
' Bigelmair, A. Die Beieiligungder Christea am offentiuhen Leben in vorcmstantmhcker
■ZilL Mun.ich, 1902.
Bihlmeyer, K. Das Toieranzedikt des Gakrius mn 31.1 (Lacianims,. De mm.pirs.
с. 34). TheoL C^artalschrift, xciv, 1912, pp, 41 1, 527.
Das angibikke Tokranzediki Konstantins v$n 312, Mit Beiiragen zur
Mailander Konsiiiutkn {$if). Ib. xcvi, 1914, pp. 65, 19B.
Buonaiuti, E. La poiitka reiigksa di Massimino e Fepiiafio del nescmo Eugenio* In
Saggi sui eristianesimo primitims Citik Ki
Cadoux, C. J. The Early Christian Attitude to ETar. London, 1919.
Caspar, 'E. Kkine Beitrdge zur dlteren Papstgeschkhte. Zeits. f, Kirchengesch.
XLvi (N,F. ix), 1 927-8, p. 32 1 . . ■ ■
Costa, G. Articles in Bilychnis, in, 1914, p. 85; iv, 1914, p. 292; v, 1915, p. 437;
VI, X915, p. 18; XIV, 1919, pp. 2, 95. For the most part reproduced in abbre-
viated form without notes in Reiigwne e Poiitka nelP Impero romano* Ed. 2,
Turin., ■ 1923- ■ ' • ■
De Jong, K. H. E. Dienstzveigering bij de Oude Christenen. Leiden, 1905.
Delehaye, H. Les origines du Culte des Martyrs. Ed. 2, Brussels, 1933.
Les iigendes hagiograpktques, Ed. 3, Brussels, 1927.
Qljiq kfons sur la metkode hagkgraphique. Brussels, 1934.
Les passions des martyrs et les genres littiraires. Brussels, 1921.
Le timoignage des martyrologes. An. BolL xxvi, 1907, p. 78.
Les Ugendes grecques des saints miUtaires. Paris, 1909.
> Mtude sur le Ligendkr remain. Les Saints de Novemire et de Ddcembre.
Brussels, 1936.
La Persecution dans FArmie sous Dkclitkn. Acad. Royale de Belgique, Bull.
de la Classe des Lettres etc. 1921, p. 1 50. (An answer to E. Babut: V adoration
des empereurs et Poriglne de la persecution de Diocietkn. Rev. H. cxxni, 1916,
p. 222.)
Contributions rbcenies a P kagiographie de Rome et d^Afrique. An. Boll, liv,
1936, p. 265.
De Regibus, L. Storta e diritto romano negli Acta Martyrum. Didaskaieion, N.S. iv,
1926, Fasc. 2, p, 127.
Ddlger, F, Rom in der Gedankenwelt der Byzantiner. Zeits. £ Kirchengesch. lvi.,
3 Folge, VI, 1937, p. I, ^
Duchesne, L. Hisioire ancknne de PEglise. Ed, 4, voL n, Paris, 1908,
Dufourcq, A. Etude sur les Gesta Martyrum remains. Vol. i, Paris, 1900.
TO^ CHAPTER :XIX ^ ^ 795
Fliche, A. and V. Martin, edd. Histoire de P£gUse. Vols. ii, ni. Paris, 1935, 1936.
Florin, H. Untersuchungen %ur diocletiantschen Chnstenverfolgung. Diss. Giessen,
■1928.'.
Franclii de’ Cavalieri, P. Ossewazloni sopra akunt Atti ii martlri da Bettimio Severe
a Massimino Daza. Nuovo Boll, di arch, crist. x, 1904, p. 5.
Gelzer, M. Der Urhehr der Chris tenverfoigung von 303. In Festschrift fiir
Eberhard Vischer : Vom Wesen und Wandel der Kirche, Basel, 1935, pp. 3 5-44.
Gregoire, H. Les ckritiens et P oracle de Dldymes. M^anges Holleaux. Paris, 1913,
. . pp.. 81,-91.
MrHqi, ]y Das Papsttum. Yol. i, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1934.
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— — Kritik des Neuen Testaments von einem grtechiseken Philosophen des J Jahr-
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. T.U. XXXVII, Heft 4, 1911.
Healj, P. J, The Valerian Persecution. London, 1905.
Hulen, A. B. Porphyrfs Work against the Christians. An interpretation. Yale
Studies in Religion, i, 1933.
Hiille, Yi. ' Die Toieranzerlasse romischen Kaiser fur das Christentum bis zum
Jakre 313. Biss. Greifswald, Berlin, 1895.
Hunziker, O. Zur Regierung und Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus und
seiner Nachfolger 1868.
Jullian, C. Histoire de la Gaule. Y oh.
Knipfing, J. R. The Edict of Galerius (3 1 1 a.d.) re-considered. Rev. beige de philol.
et Thist, I, 1922, p. 693.
Lawlor, H. J., N. H. Baynes and G, W. Richardson. The Chronology of Eusebius.
C.Q, xix,_X92 5, p. 94.
Maassen, F. Uber die Grunde des Kampfes zwischen dem heidnisch-rom. Staat und
dem Christentum. Vienna, 1882.
Mason, A. J. The Persecution of Diocletian. Cambridge, 1 876.
Moricca, U. Btoria della Letter atura latina cristiana. Vol. i, Turin, 1925.
Neumann, K. J. Hippolytus von Rom in seiner Stellung zu Btaat und Welt. Leipzig,
1902.
Phillips, C. S. The New Commandment. An inquiry into the Social Precept and
Practice of the Ancient Church. London, 1930.
Quentin, H. Les Martyrologes historiques du Moyen Age. Etude sur la formation du
Martyrologe romain. Paris, 1908.
Schnorr von Carolsfeld, L. Geschichte der juristiseken Person. Vol. i, Munich,
19^.". ■ . . . , ■ ■ ■
Schoenaich, G. Die Kdmpfe zwischen Rmertum und Christentum in ihrer geschicht-
lichen Entwicklung von Nero bis auf Konstantin den Grossen. Breslau, 1927.
Schwartz, E. Zur Geschichte des Athanasius. Gott. Nach. 1904, Heft 4 and 5 ;
1905, Heft 2 and 3; 1908, Heft 3 and 191 1, Heft 4. (These are masterly and
fundamental studies.)
Stade, K. Der Politiker Diokletian und die letzte grosse Christenverfolgung. Biss.
Frankfurt a. Main, Wiesbaden, 1926.
Teuffel, W. S. Geschichte der romischen Literatur, Ed. 6, Vol. ni, Leipzig, 1913.
Toutain, J, Les cubes patens dans P empire romain. 3 vols. Paris, 1907-1920.
Wendland, P, Christentum und Hellenismus in ihren litterariseken Beziehungen.
(From N. J. Kiass. Alt. 1902.) Leipzig, 1902.
Zeiller, J. Les origines chrdtiennes dans les provinces danubiennes de P empire romain.
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796
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER XX
CONSTANTINE
THs bibliograpiiy is^ in the main, complementary to the bibliography on chapter
XIX and the bibliographies to the other chapters there mentioned. For a fuller (critical)
bibliography see N. H. Baynes, Cmstmiim the Great mi the Chrlstlm Church
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A* Amciiht Sources ...
. ■, (i) Texts ;
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li
TO CHAPTER XX
797
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rears. Sir E. Tke Campaign against Paganism, a.b. 324. Eng. Hist. Review, xxiv,
1909, p. I.
Toebelmann, F. Der Bogen pom MaihrgkettOi Abh. Heidelberg Akad, d. Wiss.
PhiL-hist. Ell. Abh. 2, 1915.
(r) The ^ Edict of MUan"
For a comparison and discussion of the Eusebian and Lactantian texts cf. 1 . A.
HeiM, De Comtantmi Imperatoris scriptts edendts. Inbjodning-Skrift of the
University of Helsingfors dated 29 March, 1916, pp. 17 jff. and note E. Schwartz,
Gm. Nad, 1904, p. 53411. I.
BatifibI, P. Le seiziime Centenaire de Pidii de Milan, DMdit it les origines de la
^ likrti reitgietise, Le Correspondant, lo Mars, 1913, p. S39.
Knipfing, J. R. Das angeMich ^^MaiMnder EdikP^ p.J, 313 im Lkite der nemren
Fmdmg, Zeits. £ Kirchenge$diichte'»,(N.F. iii), 1922, p. ao6.
TO CHAPTER XX
799
Laqueur, R. Die belden Fassungen des sogenannten Toleranzedikts von Maiiand.
In 'Y!i7riT{}ix(hQv H. Swo&oda dargebrackL Reichenberg, 1927, p. 132.
propos du prdtendu £dtt de Milan. Byzantion, x, 1935, p. 607,
Pemgij G* L* La fonte giurldica delF Editto dt Milano. Roma e Y Oriente, Anno iii,
voL VI, 1913, p. 13 (= p. 273 of volume).
Pichon, R. La Liberti de Conscience dans Fancienne Rome. Rev. des deux Mondes,
15 July 1913, p. 314.
Sclinyder, W. Die Anerkennmg der christlichen Kirche von seiten des rom. Staates
unter Konstantin dem Grossen. Jahres-Bericht der kant. hoheren Lehranstalten
etc. in Luzern fur das Schuljalir 1912/13. Lucerne, 1913, p. 71.
Seeck, O. Das sogenannte Edikt von Maiiand. Zeits. f. KircKengeschichte, xii, 1891,
V- ■'.■'p.'sS.i. ■ .
{d) Constantinople
BrdUer, L. Constantin et la fondation de Constantinople. Rev. H. cxix, 191 5, p. 241.
Dolger, F. Rom in derGedankenwelt der By zantiner. Zeits. f. Kircliengescliiclite, lyi
(3 Folge, vi), 1937, p. I.
Lathoud, D. La consicration et la didicace de Constantinople. Echos d’Orient, xxvii,
1924, p. 289.
Maurice, J. Les origines de Constantinople. Soci^td nat. des Antiq. de France.
Centenaire, 1804-1904. Recueil de Memoires. Paris, 1904, p. 287.
ie) The Council of Nicaea
d’Al^s, A. Le Dogme de Nicde. Paris, 1926.
'^um^ k.'E. Tbe Council of Nicaea. Lond,ony i^2g.
(J) Coinage
Maurice, J. Numismatique Constantinienne. 3 vols. Paris, 1908-12.
Schultze, V. Die christlichen MUnzprdgungen unter den Konstantinern. Zeits. f.
Kirchengesch. xliv (N.F. vii), 1925, p. 321.
{£) Chronology
Kase, E. H. A Papyrus Roll in the Princeton Collection. Baltimore, 1933.
Kluge, E. Beitrage zur Chronologic der Geschichte Constantins des Gf'ossen. Hist.
Jahrbuch, XLii, 1922, p. 89.
Piganiol,A, Dates Cons tan tiniennes, Rev.d’hist.etdepbil. religieuses,xn,i932,p. 360.
Seston, W. Recherches sur la chronologic du regne de Constantin le Grand. Rev. E.A.
XXXIX, 1937, p. 197.
Sur les deux dates de la Table de Privileges de Brigetio. Byzantion, xii, 1937,
P- 477 -
Stein, E. Konstantin d. Gr. gelangte 3 24 zur Alleinherrschaft. Zeits. f. d. neutest
Wiss. XXX, 1931, p, 177.
(i) Miscellaneous
Franchi de’ Cavalieri, P. Della furca e della sua sostituzione alia croce nel dtritto
penale romano. Nuovo Bull, di arch, crist. xiii, 1907, p. 63.
Hartmann, W. Konstantin der Grosse als Christ und Philosoph in seinen Briefen und
Erlassen. Beilage zum Programm des stadtischen Gymnasiums zur Fiirsten-
walde. Flirstenwalde, Spree, 1902.
Pfattisch, J. M. Die Kirche in den Bchriften Konstantins des Grossen. Historisch-
poHtische Blatter, cli, 1913? p* 753 -
Seuffert, L. Konstantins Gesetze und das Christentum. Wiirzburg, 1891.
GENERAL INDEX
When the mention of a name does not record k fact of historical importance, the name is
nsually omitted. Romans are indexed under the most familiar part of their name, whether
praenomen, mmen ox cognomen. If there is doubt, a cross-reference is given. References to
Roman Britain (Sites, etc.) are given under Britain.
Aaron of Caerieon, martyr, 296
Abantus, admiral of Licinius, 695
Abeiiius, ‘vicarius* of the City Prefect,
killed, 345
Abgar, dynasty of Osrhoene, 10
— IX, 17; friend of Bardaisan, 496
— X, 87, 130^
— the Black, in Syriac tradition, 493
Abrittus (Aptaat-Kalessi), in the Dobrudja,
Decius killed at, 145, 167
Academy, the, Longinus and, 619
Achaea, province of, 392
Achilles sarcophagus, in Capitoline Mu-
seum, 555
AchiUeus (Domitius Domitianus), revolt of,
i77> 3355 coinage of, 335
Acmoneia in Phrygia, cult of the ‘immortal
gods’ at, 437
Acta Martyrum, nature of, 518} historical
value of, 202, 207; imperial edicts not
cited in, 665; interpolations in, 6^6 n,
Addai, see also under Tatianj Acts ofy 5005
Doctrine ofy 502
Adhur-Anahid, wife of Ardashir, no
Adiabene, 9, 49, 126; Christianity in, 496
Adige, R., 682
admissio, 362
Adonaea, area at Rome, 427
Adonis, 410
Adonis sarcophagus, in the Lateran, 565
adoratioy to the likeness of the Emperor,
3^35 of? 3^S
Adraha, fortification of, 175
Adrianople, 692; victory of Licinius near,
688 ‘j victory of Constantine at, 695
Adulis, 271
Aedesius, Christian, 676
Aelian, author, 613
Aelius Gordianus, jurist, 589
Aelius Junius Cordus, biographer, 599
Aemilia Pudentilla, wife of Apuieius, 570
Aemilianus, prosecutor of Apuieius, 581^
— Aemilius, governor of Lower Moesia,
defeats Goths, 147 j proclaimed emperor,
147, 168, 229; defeats Gaiius, 168;
murdered, 169
L. Mussius, Prefect of Egypt, revolt of,
17s s^,y 186
Aemilius Asper, grammarian, 577
aerarium, 373x7.
aetemitasy on coins, 357 sq.y 386, 417,7x9,
interpretation of, 719
Aethiopica of Heiiodorus, 6x5
Afinia Gemina Baebiana, wife of Gallus,
1675 on coins, 167 n.
Africa, Septimius Severus and, 6, 21, 24;
division of, 275 army in, 6; disturbances
in, 76 5 Gordian proclaimed emperor in,
76 sq.-y revolts in, 84x7., 349 X7., 681 X7.J
government of, under Diocletian, 392;
joins Maxentius, 345; desert tribes in, 205
Christianity in, 536 sqq.y 676; martyrs in,
5x8, 520 j religious divisions in, 692 sqq.\
taxation units in, 4005 roads in, 33 w.j
economic progress of, 240; imperial
domains in, 249; agriculture in, 278;
buildings in, in early third century, 551;
‘Africitas,’ 579, 583, 589, 592, 6095
African senators, 25, 375
Africanus, Julius, assists at building of
library at Rome, 66, 477; life and works
of, 477 X7.; and Origen, 485, 488; Euse-
bius and, 641
Agathonice, martyr at Pergamum, 518
agentes in rebus, 390
Agriculture, in Africa, 278; in Britain,
284x77.5 in Egypt, 252, 273, 276; in
Italy, 2%% sq,y 254, 260x7., 2765 in the
provinces, 240x77.; importance of, 251,
2545 decline of, 260, 26S, 276
agri decumateSy overrun by barbarians, 156,
158, 308
Agrippa, in Cassius Dio, 59 sq,
Ahriman, 118 X7., 430
Ahura Mazda, 430; see also under Mazdean
Aitilaha (Theodore), Bishop of Edessa, 500
Akiba, Rabbi, 484
ala, Ulpia contariorum cbuium Romanorum,
210; 1 Gallorum et Fannoniorum cata-
fractata, 210; of camelry, 2105 aloe, in-
crease of, under Diocletian, 397
Alans, 100
Alban of Verulam, martyr, 296, 679 n.
Albano, legion at, 24, 26, 43, 155, 376
Albinus, philosopher, 582 «.
Albinus, D. Clodius, governor of Britain,
X5, 22, 27, 36, 589; becomes C^s^,
5, 6 and war of, with Septimius
C.A.H. XII
8o2 general index
Severijs, proclaimed Augustus, '
ii; in Gaul, la; defeat and suicide, of,
i4iy. ^
x%lemanni, 47, 71, 74, 153; invad,e Italy,
139?/., 154^//^., 3745 attack agri dem--
mates^ 3cS, Gaul, 314 jg., Raetiao. ItMeSf
154; defeated by, Aurelian, 156, 308 19.,;
Claudius, 156, Constantius, 334, Gal-
Menus, 155, Maximian, 37a if., Probus,
157,31417.
Alexander of Abonuteiclios, 409 n*
— Bisbop of Jerusalem, martyr, 5a i
— ■ the Great, Caracalia poses as, 44, 47 if.,
416, 55c; visits Ammon, 437
— of Lycopolis, opponent of the Maiiichees,
— Prefect in Carthage, revolt of, 349,
68,117.
— Severus, see under Severiis Alexa.nde.r
Alexandria, massacre by Caracalia at, 49,
6x9; disorders in, 173 if., 180; occupied
by Palmyrenes, iSc, 301 ly., 620; siege
of, by Diocletian, 335; religion at, 4205
Christian school at, iS, 477 iff.j pe.rsecU'
tion of Christians in, 94, 520 if. j Church
of, a.nd .Rome, 524 if. 4 Museum at,
6191777 manufactures from, 244; coi^-
age.,'minted at, 2 n., ,3:35, ^73i ^^3?
301 jf,, ,403, 4,17 and II.,, 418#., 419 If.,
714 ■ ■ .
aiimenta, 25, 252
Allectus, ruler of Britain, 332
Alps, 13* 33 Nork, 135 Maritime, 26
Cottian, 26«., 2911.; Poenine, 2612.5
.Transylvanian,. 22, ,150
Aliita, R.j limes along, 22, 1,435 road along,
142 '.If*
Alypius, life of, by lamblichus, 635
Amasia, pei^cution of Christians at, 695
Ambrose of Milan, 225, 601
Ambrosius, friend of Origen, 75, 4S6
Amelius, Neoplatonist, 4425 and St John's
Gospel, 6325 at Apamea, 635
amki prindpis, 363
Ammia of Philadelphia, Christian prophet-
ess, 455
Ammianus Maroellinus, on Aurelian’s de-
feat of the Goths, 1525 on Gallienus, 225;
on studies at Alexandria, 6205 history of,
711
Ammon, 4375 on coins, 416
Ammoaius Saccas, philosopher, 442, 482,
61 8, 621 sq,, 648
Amphitheatrum Flavium, restored, 66
mabolihn, maboMcae spedes, tax on
Egyptian products, 65, 263, 273
Anahita, 1235 temple of, at Stakhr,’io9rf,,
120
Anastasia, sister of Constantine, 691
Anastasiiis, Emperor, 3 68
Anatolia, Christianity in, 488 jf., 660 ■;
■AndonobaEus, Herulian chief, 162
Andros, cave of Mithras on, 417
.Anebo, Porphyry and, 637
' mgareiai, compulsory provision of trans-
port, 25S, 279
.Anicetus, Bishop of Rome, 531
Annianus, legionarv commander at Mainz,
. ■ 82
— poet, 584
mmna, 31 if. .and n,, 245, 248; prefecture
of, 28, 54 and n,, 30S5 tax of Diocletian,
■ 400 Iff.
' Amnymus Faksii, historical wrtrk of, 712,
. interpolations in, . :7 1 2
Anteros, Bishop of Rome, 534
Antinous, 4 1. 1: ■
•Antioch, supports Niger, 7177 attrihutci
to Laodicea, 8| restored to for.j..iie.r
dignity, i8; in l\rsian -.var of Severus
Alexander, 69, 1285 threatened by
Shapur I, 130.77 taken by Shapur, 135,
1 70, 703 5 occupied by Zcmobia, 179, 302,
by Aurelian, 303 5 mint at, 1 79, 297, 3 1 1 ,
320.; pros|>erity of, 278; arms factory
■ establis.hed. in, 336
— i.n Pisidia, 687
Antioch us, Palmyrene pretender, 305
■Antomne liinersify, 33 n., 36 n,
Antonines, . .1, 235 pn»pe.ri..ty of a.ge' of,
..■ 249 ff- . , '.
* AntonmianusJ coin iBiied by Caracalia,
45, 2625 issue of Efecius and Herennius
Etruscus, t455 debasement of, 266 and n»
Antoninus Pius, Emperor, 165, 257, 2605
religious policy of, 4135 medaliioris of,
■41.3^ , " '
Antonius Juiiaiius, teacher of Gellius, 577
Aiiulii.nus, senator, 324
.Apamea, 315, 611, 622, d;! 5, 638
Aper, Praetorian Prefect, crimes of, 3225
killed by Diocletian, 322
Aphaca, oracle at, 303. '
Aphraates, on the two classes of Christians,
499 rf.5 works and theology of, 501
Apofiinarius of Laodia*a, 618, 634
Apollo, as patron of Cfmstantirie, 68017.;
Milesian, 665, 6695 Romans consult, 41 1
— * GmumSf Caracalia and, 48, 433 n.
•— Py thins, ideiitilied with Azix, 199
— Sdutaris, 205
ApoEomus of Tyaiia, 438, 6x3 iff., 642
Apologists, Christian, 460 iff., 639 iff.,
649 Iff.
Appharban, Persian envoy, 336
Apronianus, senator, 23
Apsaeus, Palmyrene rebel, 305
Apu!eius,^579 Iff.; religious ideas of, 4405
TertuEian and, 592
Apulum, inscription at, 144; excavations
.at, 151
. Aquila, translator of Old Testament, 484 if.
GENERAL INDEX
Aquiieia, siege of, by Maximinus, sq,y
strategic importance of, 213; garrison of,
^3:3 39^5 taken by Constantine, 6825
manufactures of, 239; dedication at, 414
Aquilia Sever a, wife of Eiagabalus, 55
Aquincum, becomes a colony, 19 sq,
Ara Pacis, 549
Arabia, Petraea, 233 jy.; legion in, 8, 308
Arabs, Skenite or Mesopotamian, 9
Arague in Phrygia, petition from, 90, 91 n.,
264
Aramaic, 493
Arbeia, Chronicle of, 1 1 1 sq. 5 bishopric of,
' ■ I2I,:496. ' ' "
Area Caesarea, birthplace of Severus Alex-
ander, 57
Architecture, buildings of early third cen-
tury, 550^7^.; of middle third century,
560^7.; under the Tetrarchy, 557^^9.5
Christian, 569 n.
Ardabau, village in Mysia, 456
Ardashir I of Persia, overthrows Parthian
kingdom, 69, 109 jy., 1265 attacks
Armenia, 126 sq., Mesopotamia, 69, 1275
wars of, with Rome, 6<^ sq., izy sqq.^,
conquests of, in East, 130; captures
Nisibis and Carrhae, 86, 1305 crowned
King of Kings, 109; death of, iii, 130;
coinage of, 120, 130; palace of, atFiruz-
abad, 122; reliefs of, 123, 126; rebuilds
Ctesiphon, 117; builds ports on Persian
Gulf, 1 18
Argaithus, Gothic chief, 92, 142 sq.
argenteus, coin of Diocletian, 338, 404
Aristides, Aelius, on the Pax Romana,
233 sq.^ on sea voyages, 236 and on
trade, 249; religious ideas of, 440
•— of Athens, apologist, 463 sq.
Aristobulus, Praetorian Prefect, 327
Ariston, first Bishop of Smyrna, 474
Aristotle, used by Porphyry, 629
Arius, Arian Heresy, 697 sq.
Arles (Arelate), na^icularii of, 31 n., 266;
capital of Constantine, 691; Council of,
296, 691, 693 and w.j wine exported from,
242
Armenia, 49, 70, 88, 1695 attacked by
Ardashir I, 126 xy.; war of, with Persia,
1315 abandoned by Rome, 131X9.J
Roman protectorate over, 336; war of
Maximinus Daia with, 688
Army: for individual formations see under
ala, Cohort and Legion j in Africa, 6 5 in
Britain, 5, 10, 14, 36 sqq.t, on the
Danube, 3 sqq., 14, 24, 92, 143.^7., I 47 >
zoosq., 656; in Egypt, 6, 8, 235, 3985
in Illyricum, 6, 166, 2033 in Italy, 24,
945 in Mesopotamia, ii, 69, 3765 in
Moesia, 6, 7 72.5 in Pannonia, 48, 64, 71,
1735 in Raetia, 84, 189, 3565 on the
Rhine, 3, 5, 14^7., 22 71, 169, 191,
803
200, 242 5 in Spain, 12, 445 in Syria, 3, 5,1 1,
14, 52 tt., 127, 3085 troops from Dacia, in
Italy, X51, at Poetovio, 152, 2145 Eastern
troops in Italy and Gaul, 214 5 Illyrian
troops on the Rhine, 3325 Moorish troops
on Northern frontier, 905 Pannonian
troops at Aquileia, 2145 Syrian troops on
Numidian frontier, 21 72,5 and the
frontiers, 208, 211 sqq., 379, 397 J77.;
and the imperial house, see Chap. 15 and
the choice of emperors, 71, 368 sqq., 704;
under Septimius Severus, 31 sqq.^ under
Severus Alexander, Sq sqq.\ transforma-
tion of, 208 sqq. 5 composition of, 3 sq.,
14, 33 sq., 3795 reorganization of, in third
century, 160, 261, by Gallienus, 182,
213x77., sqq., by Diocletian, 217,
396x77.5 as a cultural factor, 199x7.,
261 X77.5 as an economic factor, 242 sq.,
246, 252, 261 sqq.', as a political factor,
199x7., 261 X77.5 gifts of money to, 201,
Z21 sq.', pay of, 45, 262 and n., 725;
special levies in kind for, 399x7.5 legal
position of soldiers, 32, 845 marriages of
soldiers legalized, 19, 32, 208, 4345
Christians and service in, 659 sq., 66% sqq.,
693 5 Emperor-worship in, 3 56 5 concordia
militum on coins, 310, 318x77, 3245 of
Odenathus, 1745 Persian, no
Arnobius, apologist, life and work of,
607x77. 652x7.5 and Cicero, 607x77.,
Lucretius, 608 sq., Plato, 608 ; Decretum
Gelasianum and, 6075 Jerome on, 6075
Lactantius and, 652 sq.
Arras, gold hoard of, 333
Arrian, circumnavigates Black Sea, 234
Arsacid dynasty, 17, 69 sq., 109, 126
Arsanene, 336
Arsinoe, cult of Juppiter at, 46 n.
Art, see Chap. XVI 5 Roman tradition in,
5525 *of the steppes,* 100 sqq., 1085 ‘bar-
barian,* 1085 Celtic, 2945 Parthian, 548,
558x7.5 Sarmatian, 1005 Sassanian, 558
X7,; in Britain, 293 X7.5 meaning and
features of ‘late classical,’ 561 sqq.', ‘Con-
stantinian classicism* in, 5675 baroque
style in, 553 X77.5 changes in style of por-
traiture, 544x77., 552 X7., 563x7.5 por-
traits of emperors, 545 sq., 552 sq.,
^6%sq.', historical reliefs, 546x7.; paint-
ing, 225, 560; miniature portraits, 560;
Christian art, 294, 550, 560, 565, 569 sq.
Artabanus V, of Parthia, 48x77.; over-
thrown by Ardashir of Persia, 69, 109,
124, 126
Artavasdes, King of the Armenians, 132;
tetradrachm of, 126
Artemas, heretic, Paul of Samosata and, 490
Artemis, 4105 Ephesian, 419
Axval \Acta, 845 protocols, 366; brother-
hood, dedications by, 4 1 2
GENERAL INDEX
804
Asclepiodotus, Praetorian Prelect, defets
Allectus, 33Z
A-seilius Aemiliaiios, governor of Asia, 6, 7,t t
Asiay province of, 592 5 disorders in, z'l mdn*
Asia Minor, attacked by barbarians, 147
169, 177, 31a, 72 X 17.; persecution
of Christians in, 518, 520, 687; Zenobia
and, 179x7^5 disturbances in, 315^7,5
new mint in, X77, 31 xj products of, 243;
buildings in, 5511 sarcophagi from, 555
Asprudas, R., 336
Assyria, 126
Astarte, Hypsiste, dedication to, 427
Atargatis, Syrian goddess, 42S n,
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Con-
stantine and, 6 98
Atbanatos l^ityiichaiios, pagan priest, 683
Athenaeus, Deipmsophutoi of, 613, 620
*— Roman admiral, 722
Athenagoras, apologist, 466 sq^
Athens, walls of, rebuilt, 147; captured by
barbarians, 149, 619, 7225 Gallienus and,
231; and art, 5515 studies at, 61 S sq,
Atropatene, 70, 126, 129, i%i
Attis, 410, 4215 on coins, 4155 dedications
to, in Western provinces, 425 ; in art, 436 5
liyiim to, 4.3 S n.j '446
oMctoritas primipis^ 352 sqq.
Augusta Treverorum, see under Treves
Augustine, and Neoplatonism, 4431 and
Manichaeism, 504, 508 j and Orosius, 7129
on Cyprian and Ambrose, 601
Augustodunum (Autuii), siege of, 192
Augustus, 15, 26, 36; called deus under
Gallienus, 194; basis of power of, 3525
as title in the Tetrarchy, 383 sqq. 5 coinage
of, 715
Aurelian (L, Bomitius Aurelianus), Em-
peror, birth and character of, zqj sq.^
plots against Gallienus, 190, 298^ under
Claudius, 2985 accession of, 179 rf., 2975
revolte against, 3003 and the frontiers,
308 defeats ¥andals, 139, 299, Carpi,
140, 305, Juthungi, 152, 156, 298x9.,
309, Goths, 152, 302, Akmaani, 156, 308
abandons Dacia, 252x9*, 302$ and
Palmyra, 301 destroys Palmyra,
3055 and Zenobia, 304 and Tetricus,
306x9.; triumph of, 3075 army reforms
of, 217 J7.5 social policy of, 307 ry,; cur-
rency reforms of, 269, 307; and organiza-
tion of corporations, 2695 has vision of
the Sun-god, 304; establishes cult of ^Soi
hwtuSf 309, 416, 651 ; and Christianity,
3095 and Paul of Samosata, 207, 303, 491
19.; wears diadem as a god, 360, 366;
murder of, 3105 consecrate, 3125 coinage
of, 152, 179, 227, 300x99., 307, jiorf.,
31:7, 320, 358x9., 417 sq.i 716x994 assists
viticulture in Italy, 271; and trade, 273 j
builds wails of Rome, 300
Aureiii, vault of the, 550
Aurelius, Marcus, Emperor, i, 4, 10, 12,
20, 31 n,f 41 50 150, 257, 260 19.,
356; Septimius Severus adopted into
family of, 12, 355; name of, taken by
Caracalla, 12, 16, by Elagabalus, 52, by
Severus Alexander, 53 ; and the Christians,
518x9., 659; education of, 573x9., 588;
mission of, to China, 2355 coinage of,
257, and inflation of coinage, 724;
Column of, 544, 54^^ Sf>3
— Marceiliaus, dmmttrmsy 214
— Quirinius (Quirinus), and Odenathus,
176 ■
— Victor, see Index of pas&iges quoteci;
Cmsares of, 7 1 1
Aumolus, general of Gallkaus, 173, 1%
185 xf.; revolt of, 150, 156, 189 Xff., 722;
death of, X 90, 298
mrum emnariumf 54, 64, 263
Ausonius, 5S4 ^ „
auxsiia^ national characteristics in, 2x0x97
bound to the soil, 212; German, 218x9,,
3795 mounted, 3795 399
Jmestay in X99., 117, iz2
Avircius Marcellus, inscription of, 488 Xf.
Avitus, Alflus, poet, 586
Aziz, god of the O'srlioiniam, 199
Azrila, Mankhaeau came for God, 512
bml of Emesa, s* Rome,
54x99., 412; Severus Alexander and, 571
on coins of Eiagalabus, 417, 719
Baby las, Bishop of Antioch, martyr, 521
Babydon, 700; capture of, by Septimius
■ Severus, 16
Bacchus, African, 432 ; temple of, at Rome,
413; on coins, 415
Baden, 74 ■
Baebks Juncinus, Prefect of Egypt, 22 n*
Baetica, see under Spain
Baetocaece in Syria, fair at, 271
Bagaudae, revolt of, 267, 287, 327
Baikal, Lake, treasures found near, lox
Balbinus, JD. Caelius Calvlnus, Emperor,
78x99.5 quarrel with Pupienus, 80x9.;
murdered, 8 1 5 oratory and poetry of, 598
Balbinus, sarcophagus of, 555
Ballista, see under Caliistus (Ballista)
Balneum Surae, reconstruction of, S4
Barbeio, the Ali-Motksr, 473
Bardaisan, 496 199., 506, 5105 theory of
creation, 496 X9.5 on the wurrtetioo,
497 Xf.; and the if fix o/TMomasp 498; visit
of Brahmans to, 614
Barsamja, Bishop of Mc«a, 5cx>
Ba«miiis of Hatra, 9
Basilides, gnostic, system of, 473
Bajwianus, plots against Constantine, 691
Bassus, Junius, wcophagiis of, 570
— Fomponius, mmciw 175
GENERAL INDEX 805
Bastarnae, attacks of, 143, 149; settled, in
Thrace by Pro bus, 139, 316, in Pan-
nonia, etc., by Diocletian, 1405 war of
Gaierius with, 334
Bavares, attack Numidia, 182
Bei and Nebo, worship of, at Edessa,
499ry.
Belenus, local deity of Aquileia, 80
Beigic cloaks, 242
Beneventum, temple of Isis at, 413 ; arch at,
: SA^sq.
Beroea (Macedonia), 88
— (Moesia), Decius defeated at, 144; in
first war of Constantine and Licinius, 692
Berytns, 8, law school at, 48 2, 708
Bithynia, 7, 53, 179
Black Sea, 145, 170; circumnavigation of,
■^■34 , ■
Biandina, martyr at Lyons, 519
Blemmyes, 174; invade Egypt, 277, 308;
support Firmus, 305 j support Ptolemais,
316
Boethius, 597
Bononia, cenatorium of Juppiter Dolichenus
at, 427
Bonosus, revolt of, 316 and
Borani, barbarian tribe, attacks of, 134,
1^6 sq,
Bosporus, kingdom of, assists barbarians,
1475 relations of, with Rome, 176, 261
Bostra, colonia metropolis, 88
Brigands, Brigandage, in Egypt, 21 and
2685 in Gaul, 267, 287, 327} in Italy, ii,
21, 44; in various provinces, 225 in
Umbria, 905 caused by economic de-
pression, 267 ry.
Brigetio, legions at, 37 n,, 48
Brioni Grande, villa at, 239, 250
Britain, 10, i2«., 14^9., 22, 27 43
Chap. I, 36 sqq.. Chap, vili; mutiny in,
suppressed by Pertinax, 1 5 Septimius
Severus and, 36 sqq.'^ Postumus and, 187;
Carausius takes possession of, 317, 327,
331 sq. 5 Constantins and, 332^9., 344, 6785
relations with Gallicempire, 3075 army in,
5, 10, 14, 36 j‘^ 7. 5 defences of, reorganized,
3335 German captives in, 315, 317; re-
bellion threatened in, 317$ divided into
two provinces, 15, 27, 36 ry., 391, into
four provinces, 333, 393; officids in, see
under Britain, officials; decline of cities
in, 282 sq., 2935 villages in, 287; villas in,
284 sqq . ; roads in, 293 ; economic progress
of, 240 sq., 267, 271, 276 sq., 282; effect
of monetary crisis on, 285; internal trade
of, 271, 292; mines in, 240^9., 273, 288
sqq.i pottery manufactured in, 290x9.,
2945 Samian ware in, 290; textile manu-
factures in, 291 X9.; religion in, 294x99.,
432; god Nodens, at Lydney, 289, 296;
Christianity in, 296, 679 art in, 293
sq,p Romano-Celtic temples in, 295;
coinage of, 7165 coin hoards in, 40, 314,
317; mints in, 333
Britain, officials in:
Aifenus Senecio, see under vSenecio,
Alfenus
Claudius Paulinus, legatus pro praetore in
Britain, 37, 38
Ociatinius Adventus, procurator of
Britain, 27 72.
Senedo, Aifenus, governor of Britain, 22,
27 36 X9.; restores defensive system,
sq.
Virius Lupus, governor of Britain, i%n.,
37; deals with tribes beyond northern
frontier, 38, 41
^^itain, Roman sites, etc.:
Aberdeen, 40
Aesica, on Hadrian’s Wall, 37
Bath, 295
Benwell, 38 n.
Bewcasde, 39
Birdoswald, 39
Birrens, 39, 40 n., 42 n.
Bowes, 38
Brampton, 39
Brecon, 39
Brigantes, 38, 283
Caerleon, iqn.\ reconstruction at, 39,
42 n.\ barracks disused at, 42 and n.
Caersws, 39
Caledonia, Caledonians, 40 sq., 292
Camden, 39
Camelpn, 40
Gapheaton, patera from, 245
Cappuck, 4072.
Carnanton, ingot of tin from, 290
Garnarvon, 39
Castor, pottery from, 290, 292, 294
Catuvellauni, 283
Gharterhouse-on-Mendip, 288 X9.
Chester, 36 sqq.*, walls rebuilt, 39
Chesters, 27
Chew Green, 40 «.
Corbridge, 284
Cornwall, tin mines in, 289 sq,
Cramond, coin-finds at, 40 sq.
Cranborne Chase villages, 287
Dolaucothy, gold mine at, 288
Durotriges, 283
Fens, drainage of, 287
Fife, hoards in, 40
Forest of Dean, continued activity of
iron mines in, 289
Forth, R., and Firth of, 40
Greta Bridge, 37
High Rochester, 37, 39, 40 n,
Housesteads, 38
Ilkley; 38
Kincardineshire, hoards in, 40
Kinross, hoards in 40
8o6
GENE'EAL 'INDEX
Britain^ Roman sites, etc. (com,)
Knaptoiij pottery from, 2$i
Lancashire, forte in south, 37 . :
Lincoln, 37
Londinium, 3 32; mint at, 333
Lydney, hill and temple of Nodens at, '
5189., 296
Maeatae, 38 if,, 41
Matlock, lead mines near, 288 if. . ,
Mendips, lead mines of, 2SS if.
Momgomerysliire, 39
Moray Firth, 40
Nene valley, pottery of, 290 if., 293
New Forest pottery, 290 iff.
Kewstead, 40 n»
Ochii Hills, 40
Pentre, lead mine at, 28S
Eedesciale, 39
■Ribbie, R., 37,
Rismgham, 27 39, 40 n,
Scotland, 38 if., 42 n.
Sikliester, 283, 296
Soltvay, 39
Somerset, coal from, 292
South Shields, 40
Tay, R., 40
Tyne, R., 39 if.
¥eru!am, rise and decline of, 282 if,;
..Comtanti'iis Chlo,ms.a.od,'2S4 .
. W'aies, Welsh, 39, 42 ■■
—• South, 36
Wall, from Forth to Clyde, 41
— Hadrian^s, 37 iff., 283; dedication to
, 'BeaBuria from, 428'
■Weald, iron mines of, 289
■ Wiltshire, 287, 292 ■
Winchester, 292
Woodeaton, 293
Wroxeter, 283
York, 19 36, 38, 41; barracks disused
at, 42; becomes a 'colonia,* 42; death
of Constantius at, 344, 678
Brixia, battle at, 682
Bruchium, suburb of Alexandria, iSo,
Bucois, Bishop of Smyrna, 474
Buddha, in Mani's system, 508, 510, 637;
missionaries of, 98 if.
Buddhism, under Sassanid Empire, 12 1
Bull, Farnese, ;J46
Bulk Felix, brigand, 2 1
Burgundians, East German, 146 if,; de-
feated by Maximiaa, 328
Burz^n Mhir, temple of, 119 if.
Busiris, revolt of, 328, 335
Byzantium, iE6, 692, 695 if.; in campaign
against Niger, 6 iff., 1 5 ; siege and all of,'
IX j taken by barbariaas, 723, by Maxi-
min, 6S8; besieged by Constotme,
695; transformed into Constantinople,
696 if., 709
•Cabirus, on coin of Claudius Gotbicos, 417
Caeciiia Paulina, wife of I^laxiiniiius (I), 75
Caecilianus, career of, 393
Caecilius Natalis, in Mirmcius Felk, 595 if.
.Caenophrurium, Aurctlian murdered at, 360
Caerellius, A., work of Ceiisorinus .dedi-
cated, to-,. 6-0'0 . .
Caesarea (Mazaca), in Cappadocia, 1 3.4, 1 36
— (Palestine), 75
Caesariani, 666
caiaMmf Greek name for Faiiscan ^’erse,
5^5
.CaU-istratus, Jurist, 31
■ Caillstus, Bishop of Rome, controversy of,
with Hippolytiis, p3if4 catacomb of,
. 535; attacked by Tcrtullian, 537 if.
— .(Baiiista), Praetorian Prefect, 136, 173;
defeats Persians, 1,72; klikd, 173
Calpurnius, works of Nemesian attributed
to, 606
Campi Catalaunii near Chaluiis, victor)^ of
Auteiian at, 306
Campus Mardiensis, battle at, 692
— Martins, 66; temple of Isis and Sarapis
in, 4.1-3
Candidus, Tilaerius Claudius, general of
Septimius Severus, 7 .
Cannabaudes, Gothic chieftain, 152, 302
cmmphQri^ guild of, 425
Capenianus, governor of Nuinidia, 77 if.
capitaH^^ 400 if. ; Gakrius and, 402
Capitoline cukus, in Egypt, 420
— triad, in Latin -speaking provinces, 434
Cappadocia, persecutkm of Christians iii,
75; attacked by Persians, 132, 134; in
campaign of Wderian, 135; roads in,
■
Capua, metal vessels of, 238
Caracalla, Emperor, 30, 42 rff., 365; name
of, Caracalla, Caracallus, 4S and w.; career
of, 12, i6rff.„ 21 ; proclaimed Augustus,
17 and character of, 44, 47; hatred of
Geta,^ 42 Iff.; reign of, 43 jff.; the
Antmiinimay 45 ^ 97 .,
depreciates coinage, 45, 262; iiicwuses pay
of army, 45, 725; regroups Pannonia,48;
■ repaid roads, 43; In Britain, 38, 40 iff.;
invasion of Germany, 47 if., 154; expedi-
tion to Parthia, 48 iff,; orders massacre at
Alexandria, 49, 417, 619; murder of, 50;
Ekgabaius reputed son of, 5a; order of
precedence under, 363; coinage of, 36,
42 if., 45, 356^ iff,, 41 6 if Arches of, in
Africa, 351; Baths of, 6G 546, 550, 552;
portraits of, 545 if., 550; temples built
Caramius, officer of Maximian, ««
Britain, 327; recogniad m ruler of
Britain, 331; loses Gesoriacum, 331 if.;
„ 'murdered, 332; coinage of, 317, 331 iff.,
; 718
GENERAL INDEX.
807
Caravan trade, passing through Mesopo-
tamia, 1 1 7 ; of Palmyra, ^4^
Carduene, 336
Carinus, son of Carus, becomes Caesar, 3215
character of, 321 ruler of the West,
322 rg. 5 murdered, 323, 606
Carnuntum, 3 32 «.5 becomes a
"coionia,’ 19 ry.; conference of Em-
perors at, 347, 6705 Mithraeum at, 4145
mint (improvised) of Regalianus at, 184
Carpi, attack frontier, 84^9., 87, 90, 92,
J39 143 rf., 148 ^9., 1 8 1, 3345 settled
the-Empire, 334 ■■
Carpus, martyr at Pergamum, 518
Carrhae, captured by Shapur I, 86, 130,
172; retaken by Timesitheus, 87, 131;
retaken by Odenathus, 1 74
Carthage, revolts at, 180, 349 j lamps manu-
factured at, 241 j church of, 535 sqq,
Carus, Emperor, family of, 321 j character
of, 321; and Probus, sqr, defeats bar-
barians, 3215 war with Persia, 113, 321
19.5 murder of, 322; coinage of, 321,
324? 359 ? 361 717
Cassandreia (Potidaea), besieged by bar-
barians, 149
Cassiodorus, 599, 6455 work of, used by
Jordanes, 71 1
Cassius Dio, Index of passages; senator,
26; political activity of, 59, 64; governor-
ships held by, 62; History of, 710; atti-
tude to philosophy, 441 5 on defence of
Byzantium, 1 1 ; on dreams and portents,
35; on the Principate, 59^9., 352x99.,
710; on the Senate, 59^9*5 on wars of
A.D. 193-7, 14 ^
castslla of Numidia, 32
Catilius Severus, orator, 589
Catonis, Disticka, 600
Cautes, Cautopates, Mithraic figures, 429
Cedrenus, Georgius, Synopsis of Histories of,
7X2';-,. ■ ■
Celsus, opponent of Christianity, 440,
485 X99., 516, 572, 634, 647 X9,, 659 sq,\
compared with Porphyry, 632 X9.
Celtic language, 24, 25 n.
Censorinus, author, 600
centonarii, guild of, 31 and 265
Cereres, goddesses, 432
Chaibones, barbarian tribe, 328
Chalcedon, captured by barbarians, 148,
Charax, port on Persian Gulf, 118
Chatti, settled at Zugmantel, 212
Chin dynasty, 105 sq.
China, defences of, 104x9,; wars with bar-
barians, 104x99.; Han dynasty, 104x9,;
Chin dynasty, 105 xy.; trade with Roman
empire, 247, 271
Chosroes I of Armenia, resists Persia, 126,
131; murdered, 132, 169
Chrestus, Praetorian Prefect, 62 sq.
Christians, Christianity: in Anatolia, 488
X9.; in Armenia, 12 1; in Britain, 296;
at Carthage, 535 X99.; in Egypt, 477 X99,;
in Melitene, 659 at Rome, 530 X99.,
679 X9.; in Sassanid Empire, 12 1; Syriac-
speaking Christianity, 492x99., 501;
Christian school at Alexandria, 18, 477
X99. ; and Roman Empire, 1 94, 203 X9., 270,
351, 464, 466, 486 sq., 515 X99., 647 sqq.,
654x99,, 706x9.; Roman government
and, 338x9., 516x9., 654x99.; persecu-
tion of, by Septimius Severus, 18, by
Maximinus, 75 sq., by Decius, 166 sq.,
202x99., 657, by Valerian, 182, 204x9.,
658, by Gallus, 205, by Diocletian and
his colleagues, 338 sq., 661 sqq., by
Licinius, 694 x9.; effect of persecution,
^ iqsq ., 674; Aurelian and, 309; re-
conciliation of, with the Empire, 646 sq . ;
conception of the Empire, 698 sq . ; tolera-
tion edict, of Galiienus, 184, 206 sq., 522,
648, 658, of Galerius, 671 sqq., of Con-
stantine and Licinius, 686, 689x9., of
Maximin, 689; property recovered by,
692 X9. ; calumnies against, $16, 595, 658,
6873 pagan polemic against, 421, 647 sqq.,
see also under Celsus, Hierocles, Por-
phyry; Hzx/i)rz<2 Augusta, hostile ‘ten-
dency’ of, 191 n., 223, 710; apologists
for, ^60 sqq., 649x99.; as a third race,
444, 461, 464 ascetic ideal in, 492,
499; authority of martyrs, 519x9., 522,
529, 538x9.; pagan sympathy for, 677;
baptism, 527; Easter festival, 528x9.;
Eucharist, 523 X99.; Pentecost, 529;
heresies, see under Gnosis, Marcion,
Monarchianism, Montanism; romances,
616; rise of monarchical episcopate, 530
X9.; treatment of apostates, 521 sq., 538
X99.; and civil office, 693; and Emperor-
worship, 658 X9.; and law, 694, 708; and
Manichaeism, 508 sqq.', and medicine,
6215 and military service, 6^^sq., 663
sqq., 693 ; and Neoplatonism, 207, 442 sq.,
648 X9.; and the Old Testament, 445 sq.,
4^0 sqq.', and pagan culture, 649 X99.,
674 and n., 706 X9,; and prophecy, 455
X9.; and social life, 659 sqq.', and the cata-
combs, 206, 529x9., 635; art, 550, 560,
565,569x9., 705; basilicas, 569; sarco-
phagi, 557, 565
Chrysopolis, see under Scutari
Cibiiae (Vinkovce), battle at, 691 sq.
Cicero, Apuleius and, 581; Arnobius and,
608 sq,, 651; Pronto and, 5^ sqq.', Lac-
tantius and, 609 sq., 650; Minucius Felix
and, 596; Tertuliian and, 589
Cilicia, 7, 136; attacked by barbarians, 312
Cilician Gates, 7 sq.
Circesium, 17
1
8o8 GENERAL INDEX
Cirta^ birth “piace of Froiito, 5 7 3s 5f||
inscription at; 595
City Prefects see under praefecius
— Watchs a 4 s " 2 ^
Ci'iis, 7 ■
ClaroSs oracles of, 441
Claudius, M. Aureiius, Gothicus, Emperor,
i79rf., 190 29719.5 character of,
23x5 conspires against GaEknuss 1905.
and the Senate, 190 campaign agaami
barbarians, 1925 defeats Goths, 150, 723,
Alemanni, 156, 1915 death of, 2975 Con-
staotine traces descent from, 349, dSo,-
6.91, 6965 ancient authors on, 225; in His-
tmaJugMsia^ 721 sqq. ; coinage of, 1 79, 41 7
— I, Emperor, and Cybek, 412, 44S1
coinage of, 715
— Maximus, in trial of Apukius, 5 So sq,
— Venae us, orator, 5S9
Clausentum (Bitterne), 3325 mint at, 333
Ckmatius, inscription of, 679 n,
Clement of Alexaiadria, iS, 477 sqq.^ 6495
life and works of, 479 sqq»
— of Rome, on St Paufs Epistles, 453 sq*i
First Epistle to the Corinthians of, 530
Ckmentfs Recognitiones^ 616
Ckodemus, Roman admiral, ,149, 7.22
cii&mariif heavy cavalry, 217 if., 303 if. ■
€$dex^ GregorimmSf .
^.Herme^emmuSf.qoZ..
-- Jusimanmf S9, 713
Cohort, II Asturum, at Aesica, 37 5 ill Bata-
vorum, in Pannonia, 2115 ni Britaa-
.aoruin, in Raetia, 356; scutatae His-
■ panorum, .2115 xx Palmyrenorum, at
Doura, 12S5 xiii Urbana, at Lyons, 14
Cohorts, Praetorian, 265 Urban,. 24, 26
Coinage 5 for deities represented on coins lee
under the several deities 5 Achiikus, 335;
Aemilianus, 16S5 Albinus, Ciodius, 4x6,
716; Alexander (pretender at Carthage),
351 5 Alexandria, 2 135, 170, 173, 183,
301 If., 403, 417 and ?2., 418 4i9it.5
Ardashir I, 120, 1305 Artavasdes, 1265
Augustus, 715; AureMaa, 152, 179, 227,
300 Iff., 307, 3 10 If,, 358
If., 4i7ty., 716 Iff.; Aurelius, Marcus,
and Lucilla, 41 ?2,, 416; Balbmus (see
beiawf under Pupienus); Caracaila and
Geta, 42 If., 45, 356 Iff., 416 if.fCarau*-
sius, 317, 331 Iff., 7x8; Carinas, 3245
Carus, 321, 324, 359, 361, 7175 Clau-
dius I, 715; Claudius II, 179, 417, 718;
Commodus, 41 ??., 337 if., 413, 4x5 19,5
Constantine, 349, 351, 691; JDacIa,
151,^301#., 720; Decks, 93, 145, 194,
204, 719; Diocletian, 32S, 33S, 35S, 403
if., 418, 71919#; Domitianus, 300 jf#,
718; Ela^Wua, 51 34, 417, 719;
Faustina I, 415; Faustina II,' 4*5;
Fiorian, 313; Gaius, 716; Galerius, 32I1
■ Galikfius, 172, 179, 1 82 If., tSyif,, 189,
■ 194, 196, 201, 226, 417; Gailiis, 167
194; Geta, see Mfuier Caracaila 5
Gordian III, 358; Hadrian, 413, 716;
Herennius Etrusciis, 145, 167 Indo-
Scythian, 99; Julia Domna, 35 337,
417, 428 613 f?.; Julia Mamaea, 63,67,
357; Lucilla (see also ahmi\ under M.
Aurelius), 4x5; Macedonia (icr
mderTlmitt); Maxentius, 35019.; Maxi -
■ mian, 359, 6S0, 717; Maxiiiiirms, 74, 79;
Maximiiius Daia, 418; Moesia, U pp<?r, S 5,
■ 90, 93 14 j, 147; Nero, 71 5 If.; Nen,-a,
716; Kumerian, 324; Pacatiaiaus, 92;
Pero2, 12 1 1 Philip, 90, 93, 41 7 ; Fhiiippus,
M. Julius Sevens, 91; Postumus, 158,
1.87, 189, 226, 320, 359, 363, 374, 418,
55^* Fioim, 31917., 359,
719; Pupienus and Balbinus, 78,80, 360;
Quintillus, iSo and n»i 19217#, 297 and
3 j I j Regalian, 1B4; Sat urn i aw, 3 1 5 w.,
71S; Septimius Severus, 2 4 iff., 12
If., iS, 27, 35 36, 38, 40 If, 35S, 416,
7x6; fe'erina, 310; Severus Alexander,
54 and jj#, 63, 65, 69, 358, 363, 417;
Shapur, 130; Soaemhis, 4x711.; Tacitus,
313? 3^0, 369; the Tctrarchy, 330;
Tetricus I, 306 and 717; Teiricw II,
306 Thrace and Macedonia, 90, 141 ;
Tiberius, 715; Trajan, 716; llranius An-
toninus I, 70; Uranius Antoninw II,
133; Vabalkthus, 179, 301 if., 311* 718;
Valerian, 13417., 148, 172, 35S, 716;
Vespasian, 369, 413, 41 5; Victorinas, 188,
214, 306, 359; Zenobia, 301
Coinage, as a historicxii source, 714 iff.;
celebrates economic well-being, 233; de-
basement of, 220 If,, 226 If., 257, 262,
266, 277, 300, 399, 703; evidence of,
for alien cults, 415197.; expresslonisi
tendency of, in third century, 563x7.;
hoards, 40, 146,1157, 186 if.,’ 314, 317,
333 9 inflation in second and third centuries,
724 If.; investiture of emperors on, 360
If., 3699 mints, 714; natUKj of gold
coinage, 2215 reform of, 220, 307#
403 If.; saera mmeia^ 362$ senatorial,
184, 307, 373 ‘^f*; token coinage, 363
coikgiaf of under officers, 32 9 kmmrum^ 25 ;
under Severus Alexander, 65, 373
Cologne (Colonia Agrippinensis, Agripp-
ina), headquarters of GaJlienus at, 158,
1S2; siege of, 185; revolt of Bonosus at,
316 and dedications to Oriental cults
, In, 4349 virgin martyrs of, 679 mini
at, 182, 185, 191; glass from, 247
€0hm\ compulsory tenure of, 396, 40a if.,
70S If •
Coimumi Aqumeum, 1919.; Bostra, 88;
, Camunmm, 191^.; Ed^, 87; Helio-
; polls, 1 7 ; Laml>^i% zo ; Laodiosa (Syria),
GENERAL INDEX 809
85 Milan, 213; Neapoiis (Palestine), 88;
Nisibis, 9; Philippopoiis (Thrace), 88;
Philippopolis (Trachonitis), 88; Romuia
(Recka), 93 ; Sebaste (Samaria), 18; Tyre,
17; Verona, 213; York, 42
Comazon Eutychianus, 52 ; Praetorian Pre-
fect, 53 ry.; Prefect of the City, 53, 62
comitatensesy cavalry regiments, 398 sq.y 705
Commagene, 11
Commodian, poems of, 603 sqq.^ Gennadius
on, 604^9.; Decretum GelasimumoiHy So^
Commodus, Emperor, i sq.y 4, 10, 20, 25,
27, 34, 41 and n,y 150, 588; deification of,
12 and n.y r6; religions ideas of, 413;
coinage of, 41 n.y 357 sq., 413, 415 sq.»y
and inflation of coinage, 725
Comum, temple of Sol at, 414 n.
Concordia, on coins, 36, 43, 310, 318197.,
324, 369, 719
congiafia, 65 sq.
consilia sacra, 3 89
consilium principis, 29, 380, 389, 406; under
Severus Alexander, 58,61 ; under Philip, 89
cmsistorium, see under consilium principis
Constantia, sister of Constantine, 350;
betrothed to Licinius, 6815 pleads for
Licinius, 696
Constantine, Emperor, 365, 665 sq.y birth
of, 32S, 343, 678; family of, 678; claims
descent from Claudius 11 , 349, 680, 691,
696 ; character of, 313, 348, 707 ; marries
Fausta, 346, 680; flees from Galerius,
343 sq.”, proclaimed Augustus, and recog-
nized as Caesar, 344; filius Augustorum,
347; and Diocletian, 669, 678; and
Galerius, 678 ry.; and Licinius, 68 r,
691 sqq.*y and Maxentius, 350, 681 sqq.-,
and Maximian, 346, 349, 6805 and
Maximin, 68^, 688; campaigns against
barbarians, 348^7., 681; invades Italy,
681 ^77.; adopts Sol In^victus as patron
deity, 348, 680 ; and Apollo, 680 17.; and
religious toleration, 686; vision of the
Cross, 683 sq.'y and the Church, 341, 673,
684^77., 696x77.; adopts Christian
monogram, 682 X7.; army reforms of,
208 ; legislation of, 694, 708 ; forms transi-
tion to Middle Ages, 700; Life of, by
Eusebius, 713; Oratio ad Sanctos of, 666;
Arch of, 547, 565 sqq.y 705 ; colossal figure
of, 563; ‘ Constantinian classicism’ in art,
567; coinage of, 349, 351, 691
— n, becomes Caesar, 693, consul, 694
— Porphyrogenitus, Encyclopaedia of, 7x2
Constantinople, foundation and importance
of, 696 sq.y 709
Constantius Chlorus, Emperor, 285, 292;
Praetorian Prefect, 328; becomes Caes^,
325, 678 ; puts away Helena and marries
Theodora, 328; dominions of, 329, 342;
defeats AJemanni, 334; expeditions to
Britain, 332 X7., 344, 678; recalls Con-
stantine, 669, 678; becomes Senior
Augustus, 3425 and the Herculian
dynasty, 3 84 and the Christians, 679;
character of, 342 .<*7.; religion of, 679;
death of, 343, 678; restores Verulam, 284
— II, birth of, 694; vision of the Cross of,
684
Constanza, St, tomb of, 569
Constitutio Antoniniana, citizenship ex-
tended by, 45 X77., 255 and taxation,
262
consularisy sq.
Coptic, emergence of, 422
Coptos, attacked by Ptoiemais, 316; revolt
of, 328 , 335
Corinthians, Third Episde to, in Syriac
New Testament, 504
Cornelia Salonina, wife of Gallienus, 18 1
— Supera, wife of Aemilianus, becomes
Augusta, 168
Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, 167 n., 205,
539 sq-
corrector, name for provincial governors,
392x7.; Apuliae et Calabriae, 393;
Campaniae, Italiae, iq %qiy 393;
Venetiae, 323
Court, ceremonial dress and insignia of,
361x77.
Cremna, siege of, 316
criobolium, j!^z% sq,
Crispinus, Rutilius Pudens, consular, at
siege of Aquileia, 79; in Persian war, 129
Crispus, eldest son of Constantine, 609; be-
comes Caesar, 693, consul, 694; in war
against Licinius, 695 X7,
Crocus, German allied king, 344
Ctesiphon, 87, no, 117; captured, by
Ardashir I, 126, by Carus, 322, by
Galerius, 336, by Septimius Severus, 16;
palace at, 122
curatores, regionum urbis sacrae, 60; reipub-^
licae, 8z
curialesy compulsion applied to, 265;
Diocletian and, 267
cursus honorum, changes in, under Severus
Alexander, 60; publicus, 25, 31
Cybele, in Crete, 418 ; at Rome, 412, 448 ; in
Western provinces, 423 X77.; in the fourth
century, 447; in Neoplatonism, 631, 636;
and Isis, 437 X7,; on coins and medallions,
35^*? 357?4i5>4i7;4i9^-
Cynegetica, poem attributed to Oppian, 6 1 1
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, life of, 600;
works of, 600x77.; works attributed to,
60 x; judgment of later authors on, 602;
Eusebius on, 644; historical value of, 712 ;
in persecution of Decius, 538, 600;
synods held by, 539; martyrdom of, 206,
522, 541,. 600; on Christian worship,
526 X7. 1 and the lapsi, 538 X77.; and the
8io GENERAL INDEX
reliaplism f)f herctli>5. 4S9 if.® 540 and
the Rijaiau priiiKiC”, 544 ami
Dccius, 222 ^ and Firiiiiliaiij 4*^9, 541 5 and
Minuciiis FeiiXj doij and Teriiillian,
601 xy.j life oft by Pontiiis» 602
Cypriauy of Antbch, 616
Cyzicusy battle of, 7; attacked by bar-
barians, 722^ inint aty 179, 192, 310, 320
Dada, frontiers of, 22; Macriiins and, 50 j
Maximinus and, 74, 795 Philip and, 92,
140; invabioiis of, 143 if., iSi j defence of,
1 50 if., 1S7; abandonment of, 152x9., .
301, 3 c 8, 72c; mines in, 240x9.5 coinage
of, 90, 151 if., 30 1 7205 Medkerrmea^
... ^53^ Ripmsis, 153, 301
Dacians (tree), aggressive spirit of, 1 39 xf,
Dalmatia, xee alsQ under Illyria; eco-
nomic progress of, 2405 equites Daimatae^
zi6
Damascus, iirrns factory established in, 336;
Christians persecuted in, 6S7
Damis, on ApoHonius of Tyana, 614
Danube, R., Danubian provinces, army on,
3 Xf/., 14, 24, 92, 143^ Xf., 147, 200 Xf.,
6565 barbarian invasions on, 139 X99.,
30S, 3345 boundary of, 47x9., 74, 153?
iSf; forti locations on, 22; Galerius on,
. p4| roads in, 6, 33 71.,, 66 f usurpations
in, 1475 economic progress of, 240
Daphne in Syria, 303, 336
Dapknis md CAkiy of l 40 Bgus, 615 xf.
Dea Caelestis, Carthaginian goddess, 55,
4321 temple of, at Rome, 413; on coins,
4165 equivalent of Dea Suria, 4325 dis-
semination of cult of, 433 n*
— Panthea, Mamaea represented as, 64 n,
— Suria, temple of, at Rome, 4135 equi-
valent of Dea Caelestis, 4325 dedication
. to, in Dacia, 428
deciiprctioi (decemprimi)^ 30; compulsion
applied to, 259, 265
Dicemalm base, in Roman Forum, 566
Decentralization in the Empire, 236x99,,
. ^53
Decius, C, Messius Quintus, Emperor,
93 iff., 143 Iff., 165 Xf-f.; family oft 2285
restores order on Danube, 935 campaigns
■ against barbarians, 143 xff., t66 X9.5
made emperor, 93, 165 xy.; defeats Philip,
■ 94, i66j receives title ‘Traianus/ t66,
1955 and the Senate, 3695 kiied,' 145,
167; consecrated, 1675 character oft 22S
xf.; persecution of Christians by, 75, 94,
166x9., 202 xff., 520x99., 656x9.4 ac-
counts oft in ancient authors, 222x9.;
coinage oft 93, 145, 194, 204, 7195 por-
trait oft 553, 5605 buEdings oft at Rome,
198^
Decurions, demrimes^ 305 under Gordian
, ill, 83 ; under Philip, 89 X9.3 computery,-
259, 4035 responsibility oft ftir taxation,
■ 401; elect priests of Cyhelv> 4^;;
dedkkti^ St$ sff.t ZTZ
Jeiaiwes^ under 65^ iindrr
'Gordian III, 82; punii^hed liy Aurcliari,
■307. ,y.
Dcmeter ot Ekusis, Galiierius ami, 1851
.I^metrius, Bishop of Alexandria, 481 Xf.
Demosthenes, Roman olfscer, 1 56
.I^nagh, mother of Fabhagh, 129
dmdrop)mrif guild oft 31, 423 n»
Dexippus, historian, 141, 146, 29K, 6195
Scj'ikka oft 711, 7231 lights against bar-
barians, 149, 619
.Diadumenianus, son i^f Macriaus, 51
Didacke^ on prophecy, 455
Didasmliaf on Old Testament, 451 if.
Digest, 30 xf.
Dio Cassius, see under Cassius Dio
of Prusa (Chrysostom), 253, 438
Diodes, see under Diodetian
'Dlocletiani, family oft 324; kills A|Xt, 322;
becomes Eoi|wror, 3235 policy oft 325
X 99 .» 383 X99., 6614 and the frontiers, 213,
■ 3^8, 397x99.5 settles barbarians In the
Empire, 140 5 and Egypt, 3355 and Persia,
1 17, 3365 divides imperial power, 328 19. 5
dominions oft 3291 illness oft 340, 667 if.;
<vicennaim oft 340, 6675 al>ciicatk)n oft
■ . 340, 66E5 at conference of Cariiuntisni,
y- 347, 670; breakdown of Tetraxchy,
■ .■■347 xf.; death of, 6965 achievements aiici
character oft 334x9., 341x9., 407x9.5
. ' Roman feeling oft 405x94 and Romaa
law, 406; reforms oft see Chap. XI, 704 19*,
■ administration, 3S8 X99,, currency, 269,
. 399 X99., provincial, 390 xi/y., taxation,
399 civil and niilitary power,
■ 394 Xf4 Edict de maximis preiHs, 269 Xf.,
^ 27S, 292, 338, 4055 establishes Orieritai
ceremonial, 337, 387x9., 7C4; juppiter
patron deity oft 329x9., 387, 407, 661,
6685 «garded as a god, 360; religious
policy oft 338 X9., 407, 414, 651, 661 xy.,
668 X9»; |iersecutes Christians, 338 xy.,
661 X99., Mankhaeans, 339, 668 xf.; por-
trait oft 5645 coinage oft 328, 338, 358,
403 19., 418, 7195 Baths oft 3 86, 399, 5685
buildings oft 399; palace oft at Saloiutf?,
399,568,696; reconstruction of the Curia
. by, 569
■dmemes^ 390; list oft 3935 frontier provinces
of Orims^ 398
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, 173, 205
xf., 4S7 xf/.; ana Dionysius of Rome, 543 ;
■ and Sabeiiianism, 542 ; and the schism of
, Novatian, 5405 on the dpwsafypsi efjokn^
■ 4S7 sq.i on the demons, 664
L* Aelius Helvius, career oft 393, 394 » .
Dionysus, 419; identified with JDusaro,
• 421, 427, with Sol, 42 X
GENERAL INDEX
Dioscuri, 419
Diospoiis (Lydda), era of, iS
Djemila, arch at, 55 ij temple of Gens
Septimia at, 560
Dokhtar-e-Nushirvan, wall painting at, 124
dominus, title applied to the Emperor, 35,
360, 704 ; ordinary form of address, 367
Domitian, Emperor, 2, 24, 238, 413
Domitianus, pretender, 300; coins of, 300
. VyiS
Domitius Domitianus, see under Achilieus
— ‘ Honoratus, Praetorian Prefect, 63 82
Domnus, Bishop of Antioch, 302 492
Donatism, Donatists, 679, 686; and
economic conditions, 280; Constantine
and, 692 sq,, 697
Donatus, grammarian, 712
Dorotheus, Imperial chamberlain, martyr,
666 7z.
Doura, in Persian war, 1295 taken by Per-
sians, 134, 17 1 ; church at, 496 Feriale
Duranum,^%ji^'^ fortification of, 2 34; frag-
ment of biatessaron discovered at, 495
496 ^.5 fresco at, 5485 garrison at, 128,
175; graffiti at, 1 2 1 , 124; Mithraeum at,
418; art types at, 419; synagogue at,
121; traders’ associations at, 251
duces^ military commanders in provinces,
395 » 397
dupondius,6^
Durostorum, in Lower Moesia, 185
Dusares, Arab god, identified with Dio-
nysus, 419, 427
Dyrrhachium, captured by Goths, 147 «.
Ecbatana-Hamadan, taken by Ardashir I,
126"
Edessa, 50, 70, 130, 170, 498; situation of,
493; attacked by Persians, 135 17 °
sqq*\ flood at, 496; arms factory esta-
blished at, 336; Christianity in, 493,
493x7., 500; Christians persecuted at,
499 sq , ; church at, 500 ; missionaries from,
12 1 ; paganism in, 500; worship of Bel
and Nebo at, 499 ^7.; Chronicle of, 500
Egnatia Mariniana, mother of Gallienus,
181
Egypt, 170, 235x7., 273; recognizes Perti-
nax, 2, Septimius Severus, 8 tz.; occupied
by Palmyra, iSo, 301 X7.; agriculture in,
252, 273, 2765 army in, 6, 8, 235, 398;
brigandage in, 22 and 268; debar-
ment of coinage in, 266 ; disaffection in,
308, 338, 708 ; divided by Diocletian, 3915
economic destruction of, 268; forced
labour in, 266; price of corn in, 725; re-
ligion in, 420x7., 6755 cult of Juppiter
Capitolinus in, 46 zz., 420; Egyptian
cults in Italy, 412x77.; Christianity in,
478x77., 674x7.; persecution of Chris-
tians in, 481, 520x7., 674; revolt of
Sii,,;
Firmus in, 277 X7., 305; taxation in, 65,
262 263, 265x7.; trade in, 243;
. veterans settled in, 32
Egyptians, Caracaila’s treatment of, 49 n.
E^piians^ Gospel according to the, 478
Eis Basika, 88x7.
Elagabalus (Heliogabalus, see 51 w.). Em-
peror, 38 n,y 42 n., 51 X77.; family of, 51 ;
reputed wOn of Caracalia, 52; priest of the
, baal oi Emesa, 51 X7.; proclaimed em-
peror as M. Aurelius Antoninus, 52;
celebrates Syrian rites in Bithynia, 53, at
Rome, 54 X7.; offends the Romans, 55 xy.,
41 1 X7.; adopts Severus Alexander, 56;
murdered, 56 sq, ; damnatio memoriae of,
62; coinage of, 51 54, 417, 719
— Sun god, 51 and n,, 304, 309
Eleutheropolis, era of, 18
Eieutherus, Bishop of Rome, 475, 531
El Gehara, on African /zw^x, 86
Elisaeus Vardapet, Chronicle of, 112
Elvira, Council of, 660, 693
Emesa, baal of, 35, 51 X7.; black stone of,
brought to Rome, 54x77.; returned, 56;
Persians repulsed at, 1 33, 1 70 j Quietus
executed at, 173; victory of Aurelian at,
303 X7.; trial of Zeno bia at, 304
Emona, 79; statues of Constantine over-
thrown at, 691
Emperor-worship, and Christianity, 658 X7. ;
conception of, under Decius, 194, under
Diocletian, 386 X7., under the Severi, 370;
divinity of imperial office, 355 sqq.*^ in
popular piety, 431; and solar theology,
43 ^ ^ .
Empire, idea of division of, 43, 371, 383;
theory of Christian, 698 sq,
Encolpius, historian, 589
Encratites, heretics, 499
Epagathus, murderer of Ulpian, 64
Ephesus, brigandage in, 22 zz.; attacked by
barbarians, 147, 169; temple of Diana
destroyed, 148; price of bread at, 725;
buildings of Flavius Damianus at, 551;
head of Septimius Severus from, 545;
Thermae at, 546
Ephraem Syrus, life and works of, 500 sqq . ;
on the Diatessaron^ 495; on Bardaisan and
Harmonius, 498; on Manichaeism, 502,
504
Epictetus, 438
Epiphanius, on Tatian, 493
Epistle of Barnabas j on Old Testament, 451
epistrategos, of Lower Egypt, 18
Epitome^ history attributed to Aurelius
Victor, see Index of passages
Epona, goddess, 432 sq.
EquiteS) army made recruiting ground for,
16, 29, 220; provincials selected as, 25;
in civil careers, 29, 394; in command of
legions, 17, 26, 3765 in command of
GENERAL INDEX
812
troops ill Italvj z6, in Mesopotamia, 26,
376; in the imprial cabinet, 3S1
392; as provincial governors, 376 iff.,-
39217., 735; displace senators, 26, 183,
S97, 202," 30'E, ^ 326, 376 If. I equim.
Daimaiae^ Mauri ^ pnimoii, scuiam, zi 6
If. I name of new cavalry force, 2173
Mscrinns first egms to become emperor,
.'Sp
e^uitsfs smguhns^ bodyguard of emperor,
24, 26
Eros, god, on seal, 99
— secretary of Anrelian, 310
Etmsciiia, Herennla Copressenia, wife of'
Decins, 166 if.
Eudoxus of Cnidus, 6 z$
Euethius, Cbriatian burnt at Nicoinedla,
666 «.
Euhemerus, 595
Eumeneia in Flirygia, destruction of, 674 '
Eunapim, 638, 711
Euphrates, R., S if,, ii, 16 if,, 70, 87, 17a
Euripides, 617 if,
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, 634, 639 iff,,
6535 apologetic method of, '6401 and
Constantine, 640 j limitations of, ' 6445
CMrsnkk of, 640 if,; Eccksiasikai His-
t&sy of, 642 Iff.; Ls/f of Cmsimiim of,
7135 Mar^rs of Palestine of, 7 1 3 ; on the
Christian Empire, 698 if,; on Constan-
tineas vision of the Cross, 683 if,; on out-
break of Gieat Persecution, 664 iff. 5 on
the palinode of Galerius, 673 if.; on re-
ligion in Egypt, 675
— Bishop of Rome, banished, 679
eutkeniay 255 273
Eutropius, historian, see Index of passages;
on the election of Claudius II, 369;
Bre^iarium of, 711
Exposith Mius mmsii et gentium^ 270, 279
Fabian, Bishop of Rome, martyr, 202, 521,
536; buries Pontian and Hippolytus, 94,
5345 importance of Roman See under,
535
fabric guild of, 31, 265
FaMsmm^ carmen^ 5S4 if.
Faltonim Restitudanus, governor of Maure-
tania, 84, 86
Fanum Fortuaae, Juthungi defeated at,
156, 299
Fate, 409, 431, 462, 468
Fates, the Thite, on coins, 330
Fausta, wife of Constantine, 346, 680
Wmftm, 4 10; discoveries in, 611
Feiicissimus, master of the mint, revolt of,
300
Felicitas, martyr, 594 if,
Felix, officer sent to Byrnstium, 17a
— procurator in Mauretania, 86
Feriah Bmramm^ festivals in, 434 , , '
Festus, Rufius, Briviarium of, 7 1 1
Feudalism, growth oft 273 ijg.; and State -
, socMism, 280 If.
Fikrkt, 509, 5^^ . ,
Financesjieorgainicd, by Septiiiiius Severus,
t1 by Diocletian, 399^77.; disorder
■■■ of, under Ekgabalos, 54, under Scverus
■ Alexander, 64177.5 e.xactions of Maxi-
minus, 76; under Gordian ill, S4, under
Philip, S9; army and, 261 ly. 5 elements in
financial system, 257 if,; increiise of taxa-
tion, 262 Iff.; Senate and, 373 if,; •‘wars
and, 256 If.
Firmilian, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappa-
docia, 489 Iff., 541
Firmus, revolt of, 277 if., 305
Firuzabad (Ardashir-Khvarreli), palace at,
122; relief at, 1.24
fiscus, zjsg.y 31 373
Fiavia Tidana, wife of Pertiiu'iX, 2
'Flavian, governor of Palestine, persecuitir
of Christians, -67 5 If .
— Emperors, religious policy of, 412 if.
'Flavianus, Praetorian Prefect, 62 if.
Flavius Caper, grammarian, 577
— Damianus, sophist, sculptured head of,
■ 545; buildings of, at Ephesus, 551
Heracleo, governor of Mtfsopotamia, 69
— Zeuxis, merchanl, journeys of, 249
Fleet, of Carausim, 331: if.; of Constandae
and Lidnius, 695 if,; of Red Sea,
^33
Florian, Emperor, 311 iff.; Fraetorlan
Prefect, 3 1 1 ; seizes empire, 312; death of,
3x3; coinage of, 313 —
Floras, and Hadrian, 584
fiilis^ coin of Diodedaii, 338 if., 404 and «.
Fords lamps, 2 38, . 2 39 2. 54 ^
Fortunatus, Cliristian author, 593
— schismatic Bishop of Carthage, 539
Forum Pizi in Thrace, 31 if,
Franks, union of German tribes, 157; sea
raids by, 159, 327; attack on Gaui, 314
If.; betray Proculus, 316; settled in Eni-
ire, 319; defeated by Comtantius, 328,
y Comtantme, 692; VLudi Frandci’' of
Constantine, 692; Salian, settled on island
of the Batavians, 334
Frescoes, from Central Asia, 99; from
Boura, 54S
Frontiers, see Chap, V; British, 38179.;
Dacian, 22, 140 iff.; Danube, z2, 139
Iff,, 308; Eastern, 22, 70; Numidiaa, 20,
32 If.; Rhine, 22, 70, 154199., 30S;
Saharan, 33; defence of, 3a, 66, 70, 137
If., 21 1 Iff., 308, 397
Fronto, M. Cornelius, 571 iff., 579, 583
Iff*, 58B; letters of, 57319*; ik€ME&
nmeihs 573 iff.; on earlkr authors, 575
If.; style of, sjbsq.i character of, 577;
■ and the Christians, 595, 647
GENERAL INDEX
frumentariiy imperial secret service agents,
4h ^59; abolished by Diocletian,
389/$'.
Furia Sabinia Tranquillina, wife of
Gordian III, 85
Gains (Caligula), coinage of, 716
Galen, 613, 621
Galerius, Emperor, becomes Caesar, 3285
dominions of, 329 5 wars of, against bar-
barians, 3 34 5 Persian campaign of, 336,
665 ; and Constantine, 343 678 sq . ;
and Diocletian, 665 sqq.*, and Maxentius,
345^77.; at Conference of Carnuntum,
347, 6705 preparations for <uicennaMa of,
350; attempts to apply capitatm to towns,
402; son of Mars, 3375 and Christianity,
339, 664^7.; toleration edict of, 671 X77.;
death of, 350, 673, 696; character of,
342 J7.; Arch of, at Thessalonica, 217
337r 5^6; coinage of, 328
423
Gallic Empire, 1 53, 1 86 sqq.^ 298, 3013 fail
of, 306 X7.} coinage of, qiT sq,
Gallienus, P. Licinius Egnatius, Emperor,
made Augustus by the Senate, 169}
marries barbarian princess, 139, 1641
decennalia of, 186, 198 j and y^erian,
182 sq.f 206 5 and Odenathus, 1 74 sqq. 5
and the protectores dmini lateriSy 219 sq,^
378; and the Senate, 183, 190, 197, 201,
6055 army reforms of, 182, 21317.5 de-
feats Aureolus, 189, Alemanni, 1^4 sq,,
182, barbarians at Nish, 149, 1895 de-
fends Rhine frontier, 157 sq,', and the
frontiers, 213 ^•7. 5 cedes part of Pannonia,
139, 1815 wars against barbarians, 18 1
sqq,', rebellions against, 184/77,5 mur-
dered, 190; character and achievements
of, 229/7.5 initiated at Eleusis, 1895
tolerates Christians, 184, 206 sq,, 522,
648, 6585 cultural endeavours of, 1895
friend of Plotinus, 556, 605, 6765 literary
hostility to, 151, 223 sq., 7215 praise of,
in Greek authors, 224 /7.5 works of, 6055
Gailienic renaissance in art, 230, 556,
5595 Arch of, 1985 medal of, 3665 por-
trait of, 5565 coinage of, 172/7., 179,
182/7., 194? ^9^? 4^7
Gallus, C. Vibius Afinius Trebonianus,
143 sqq,, 3665 governor of Lower Moesia,
143, 1455 proclaimed Emperor, 146, 1675
family of, 2295 and the Goths, 146, 1675
at Rome, 1685 murdered, 1685 persecutes
Christians, 168, 2055 ancient authors on,
2235 coinage of, 167 n,, 194
Games, represented on paintings, 560
Gannys, tutor of Elagabalus, 52 sq*
Ganzak in Azerbaijan, temple at, 119
Gargiiius Martialis, see under Martialis
Gathas, the, 118
813
Gaul, Belgic, 125 Lugdunensis, 125 bar-
barian raids on, 154/7., 306, 308/77.,
314 /7.J in campaign against Albinus,
X2 /77.; civil war in, under Decius, 1665
Carausius and, 331/7.5 Constantine and,
691/77.5 economic development of, 238
sqq,', exports from, 2425 religion in, 295,
4325 roads of, 25 n,, 33 «.
Gayole, La, sarcophagus from, 557
Gaza, paganism in, 447, 658
Gelae, 113
GeUius, Aulus, 577 sqq,', Attic Nights of,
578} style of, 447, 579
Gemeliae, African frontier fort, 86
Genesius, Saint, martyrdom of, 662
genius, genii, Augusti, 4185 of Diocletian
and Maximian, 3305 Illyrici, 1935 popuU
Romani, Gallienus as, 189, State cult of,
under Aurelian, 309, under Diocletian,
663 n.', representations of, in Central
Asia, 995 of Senate, 369
Gennoboudes, Frankish king, 328
gentiles, 397
Gepidae, barbarian tribe, 153
Germans, see also under Alemanni, Franks,
Goths 5 under Sever us Alexander, 68,
70 /7., 1415 campaign of Maximinus,
73 sq,, 14 1 5 serve under various emperors,
79, 80/7., 219, 3795 defeated by Philip,
905 attacks on the Rhine, 153 sqq,, 187,
314/7., 681, 6925 defeated by Probus,
315 5 vitality and numbers of, 1 59 5 reasons
for successes, 159 /7.5 results of invasions,
160 /77.5 and Roman culture, 162/7.;
as foederati, 162 sq,-, transplantation of,
to the empiie, 164
QQimznj, see also under Rhine, R.; eco-
nomic advance of, 239/77.; province of
Lower, 12; province of Upper, roads of,
33 «. 5 barbarian attacks on, 154
Gesoriacum (Boulogne), taken by Con-
stantins, 331 sq.', mint at, 333
Gessax, Mount, 1 50, 723
Gessius Marcianus, father of Severus Alex-
ander, 51
Geta, son of Septimius Severus, it, 21, 36,
46, 495 becomes Caesar, 17 and in
Britain, 41 /7.; becomes Augustus, 41,
43; murdered by Caracalia, 43; as Sun-
god, 356/7.5 coinage of, see under
Caracalia
— P. Septimius, brother of Septimius
Severus, 20
Gnosis, gnostics, gnosticism, 467 sqq.',
theories underlying, 467/77.; object of,
469; and Christianity, 446, 467/77.5
and Neoplatonism, 442, 627/7.;
Egypt, 478, 5425 in Rome, sp sqq,',
attacked by Tertullian, 5905 Epiphany,
gnostic festival of, 529
Gochihr, king of Persis, 109
gi4 C5ENERAL INDEX
Golden Age, expectation of, 194, 330>
348, 35S, 7^9
Gordian I (M, i^ntonins Gordianiis Sem-
pronianus), Emperor, 77 if., 36^^, 3695
goyenior of Africa, 77; character and
policy of, 77; suicide of, 78; poetry of,
597/7., 613
--- n, Empcn3r, 77 17.; writings of, 598
— Ill (M. Antonius Gordian us). Emperor,
78 iy.; becomes Caesar, 78, Augustus, Si ;
administration under, 81^77.; provinces
under, Sa, 84^7.5 Persian war, 8617.,
13017.; repulses Goths, 142; disbands
ligio in Augusta, S4; opens temple of
Janus, S6, 622; murdered, S7; conse-
crated, 884 distinguished in letters, 59S;
Plotinus and, 6225 cenotaph of, 87x7.5
portrait of, 553; buildingsof, at Volubilis,
561; villa of, 561; coinage of, 3 58
Gorgonius, Imperial chamberlain, martyr,
666 ».
Gospels, 4755 Marcionite prologues to,
454 "Monarchiaii* prologues to, 543
Goths, nomad, 99 17. 5 cross Danube, Si, 84,
92 17., 139 J77., 146 ^7., 1665 attack Asia
Minor, 134, 147 Jff., 16917., 177, 721 17,,
Greece, 147, 149, 6195 kill Decius, 145,
1675 annual payments to, 85, 92, 140 sq.,
163, 1675 defeated by Aurelian, 152, %
Claudius, 150, 192, 298, 723, by Constan-
tine, 695, by Florian, 312, by Galerius,
334, by Gaiiienus, 149 X7., 189, by Gordian
III, 142, by Probus, 3145 occupy Dacia
(Visigoths), 153; sources for Gothic in-
vasions, 721 X77.
Gratus, proconsul of Asia, 456 and
Graufesenc|ue potteries, 254
Greece, attacked by barbarians, 147, 149,
619,721x7.5 decline of agriculture in, 260;
literature, see Chap, xviil; and Roman
civilization, 7025 condition of, under the
Empire, 410; Graeco-Roman culture,
571x7.5 Greek literature, 6x2x77,5 re-
ligion in, 409 X77,
Greek traders, 246
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neo-.
caesarea, letter on barbarian raids, 148;:
„ , and Origen, 48 2 ,
Gundeshapur, 137
Gunthericus, Gothic chief, 92, 143 ■ ■ ■
Guria, martyr at Edessa, 500
Gurob in the Fay 0 m, cult of Mithras at,
428
Gushnasp, temple of, at Ganzak, 119
Habbib, martyr at Edessa, 500
Hadrian, Em^ror, 4, 25, 250, 257, 259 177.,'
28 and frontier defence, 2115 religious
policy of, 413; letter attributed to, ,4465 .
poetry of, 58 1, 5845 Villa of, 561 5 coinage
' of, 716
Han Dynasty, 104x7.5 chronicies of, X03
Hannonius, son of Bardaisan, 498
Hatra, supports Niger, 9; besieged by
Septimius &verus, 17; repulses Ardashir,
■ III, 126; taken by Shapur, 112, 130
Heddernheim, 434
Helen and Dioscuri at Doura, 419
Helena, mother of Constantine, 678; put
■ away by Constantius, 32S, 3435 sarco-
. phagus of, 57c
Heknius xVero, commentatc.ir, 377, 6co
Heliodorus, j^eikkpka of, 6 1 5
Heliogabalus, 51 xfc aJss under Ela-
gabalus
Heliopolis (Baalbek), buildings at, 551,
561 ^ ■
— ‘colonia/ Septimius Severus and, 17
Heiius Verus, Cynic, 605
Helles, Cape, 695
Hephthalites (Huns), 107
Herackmmon, betrays Tyana, 302
Heraclas, Bishop of xAlexantiria, 487
Heraclea Poistica, 148, 175, 688; mint
established at, by Diocletian, 330
Heracles, see mder Hercules
Heradiamis, officer of Galiieiuis, 1775 con-
spires against him, 190
Hercules, Commodus and, 4135 Postyiiius
and, 1875 worshipped by Constaiitius,
679, by Constantine, 6805 patron deity
■■■ of Maximian, 3*9x7., 387, 66x; di-
minished Importance of, 351; extent of
^ worship of, 4195 invests emperors with
. their power, 361 ; dedications to, at Rome,
4345 temple of, at Rome, 413; on coins,
of Commodus, 413, 416, 41S, of Pos-
tumus, 320, 359, of Probus, 319 X7., 359,
of the Tetrarchy, 35 s, 359; Fjirnese, 546;
. ■ on seal, 99 • . ” ■
Herennianus, see mder Herodianus
Herennius Pl^truscus, son of Decius, becomes
— ..Caesar, 144, x66, Augustus, 145, 167;
killed, 145, X675 coinage of, 14^,' 16711.
..Hermas, on prophecy, 4555 Shepherd of,
530x7., accepted as canonical In AfevX-
.■andria, 542
Hermetic writings, 441
Hermogeaes, , heretic, attacked ■ .by . Ter-
tuilian, 590
— orator, 613
Hermupoiis Magna In Egypt, iro, 2<o
HerodesAtticus, 573x7.
— Septimius, son of Odenathus, 175x7.,
Herodiaa, see Index of pa»ages; on wars
■■ .of A.'0. 293-7, 145 oensttitfs Septimius
^Severusi 3a; on feveras Alexander, 595
'on plot against Maxiroinoi, 73; iiiiiefy
■ of, 7to
, Herodianus, son of Zenobia, 177, 724
Heruli, 149 xy,, 177, 328, 722
GENERAL INDEX
Hierocles, Neoplatonist, 4425 governor in
Bithynia, 665, in Egypt, 676; opponent
of Christianity, 634, 653, 677; refuted by
Eusebius, 642, 653
Hieropolis in Phrygia, 489
Hippoiytus, anti-Pope, 476, 533^7.5 con-
troversy with Caiiistus, 533^7., 538;
dedicates work to Mamaea, 67, 755 de-
fender of the Logos theology, 5335
banishment and death of, 75, 534; works
of, 524 w., 534 ^7.5 church of Alexandria
and, 535, 542; Eusebius on, 644
— sarcophagi at Split and in Rome, 565
Hispania, see under Spain
Historia Augusta^ Life of ElagabaluSy 55, of
the GordianSy 81, of Secerns Alexander,
57 sqq., 65, 67 sq,, 710, of Septimius
Se^verus, 13, 39; on Decius and Valerian,
2^zsq.*, on Galiienus, 224, 721; on the
Gothic invasions, 721 ; authors and pur-
pose of, 598 sq., 710; and anti-Christian
polemic, 191 223,711; and Eutropius,
711^
honestiores, 30, 46
Horace, Aero on, 577, Pronto on, 575
Hormizd, brother of Vahram 11 of Persia,
revolts, 1 13
— I, king of Persia, son of Shapur, 113,
134 and n., 170
— II, king of Persia, 114
Hormizdechan, battle of, 109
Hostilianus, son of Decius, becomes Caesar,
166, Augustus, 167; adopted by Gallus,
167; death of, 167
Hsiung-nu of Mongolia, 103 sqq.*, settle in
Chinese empire, 105x7.; driven west-
wards, 107
Huang-ho, R., discoveries near, 10 r
humiliores, 30
Huns, in Ammianus Marcellinus, 103;
appear in Europe, 107x7.; called Heph-
thalites or Yeta, 107, Hsiung-nu, 104;
influence of Graeco-Sarmatian culture on,
163
Hyginus, compiler of fables, 577
Hymmae, near Antioch, battle of, 30372.
lamblichus, Neoplatonist, 443, 635 sqq.*,
and paganism, 636 sqq., 651
latrus, R., 144
lazyges, 150; plunder Pannonia, 139, 18 1
Ignatius, on St PauFs Epistles, 454
iByria, lUyricum, Illyrian provinces, army,
in, 6, 166, 203; emperors from, 200 X77.;
equites from, 25; protectores from, 378;
soldiers from, 25, 208 sq., 397; in the bar-
barian invasions, 145 sqq., 192; campaign
of Claudius in, 192; defeat of Macrianus
in, 173 ; rebellions in, 18 1 ; rise of Aurelian
in, genius, njirtus. Illy rid, 193, 719
imperium, 35; doctrine about, 29
815
India, intercourse of the Empire with, 247 ;
trade route to, 271; embassies to the Em-
pire from, 271 decline of trade with,
277; Apollonius of Tyana and, 614
indictio, 400 sq.
Indo-European peoples, in central Asia,
96 sq., 99; do homage to Chinese Em-
peror, 105
Informers, see under delatores
Ingenuus, revolt of, 151, 15522., 158, 180, 184
Innaeus, Manichaean leader, 513
Intilene (Ingilene), 336
Iran, Iranian, see under Persia, Sassanids
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, importance of,
450, 476; life and works of, 474x7.; in
Quartodeciman controversy, 532; list of
Roman bishops in, 474, 531, 533; and the
Apocryphon of John, 473; and Poly carp,
474; on prophecy, 455 X7.; on Valentinus,
469x77.
Isauria, Isaurians, disorders in, 68; for-
tresses built in, 316
Isis, Egyptian goddess, 410, 413 ; in Eastern
provinces, 418, in Western, 425x77.; in
Egypt, 420; and the Magna Mater,
437x7.; and syncretism, 437; rites of,
426; Pharia, name of Roman warships,
418; on coins and medallions, 413, 415,
417; temples of, 413 sq., 425
Ispatale, high priestess, 688
Issus, plain of, 7 ; Septimius Severus defeats
Niger at, 8 and n., 18
Istria, Istrians, 239, 247
Istros, plundered by Goths, 141; inscrip-
tions at, 142 ; trade of, 246
Italy, see also under corrector, iuridici Italiae,
lus Italicum*, army in, 24, 94; assimilated
to the provinces, 391 ; barbarian invasions
139? ^q*i I54'f7-j brigandage in,
21; Constantine and, 691, 693x7.; de-
cline, of agriculture in, 238 sq., 260 sq.,
276, of economic supremacy of, 237 sqq.,
244 sqq. ; depopulation of, 237 sq. ; divided
into two vicariates, 394; exports from
North Italy, 239, 241; roads of, 33;
slavery in, 237; status and government of,
24x7., 28, 44, 47, 50 and 22., 255, 345;
taxation of, under Diocletian, 400 ;
Italians, in army, 3, in Senate, 25, 375 sq.,
traders, 246
iuridici, 391; Italiae, 5022,
iurisdictio castrensis, 28
ius gladii, 46 n.
lus Italicum, 8, 17, 21, 25; colonia iuris
Italici, Palmyra becomes, 18
ius praetorium, conferred on equestrian
governors by the Senate, 318
Janiculum, Syrian shrine on, 434
Janus, temple of, opened by Gordian III,
8i6
GENERAL INDEX
JaxarteSs 107
Jerome^ St, Chronological tables ofj 7121
traiislates ide frindpus of Origen, 4S21 on
Amohius, 6c7j on Cyprian, 6025 on
Porphyry, 634; on Scptirnius &veriis,
5S5J?.
Jesus, and Palestinian Judaism, 4445 in
Manias system, 507 ify., 637
Jews, in Sassaisid Empire, izij Eusebius on,
64s Jewish nationalism, 702
Johannes of Antioch, 712
jGkn^ Acts «f, 47 1 j Ap$cai}fs€ Dionysius
of Alexandria on, 4S7 sqr^ Apocfjphm
469, 4735 Gospel of, in Egypt, 47S _
Jordanes, Getka of, 71 1 5 on the Gothic in-
vasions, 721
Jotapianus, usurper, 92 ry., 166, 169
Juan- Juan, barbarians, invadeMongolia, ig 6
Juba, writer on metrics, 577
Julia, Manichaean missionary, J14
— Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, 18,
20,^24, 35, 43 sq., 49, 51,^117; and Apol-
lonius of Tyana, 61 3 ry.j literary saim of,
6135 of, 52, 3565 coinage of, 35
357> ^*7 di3 rnj represented, as
Caeiesiis Aea^ 428 as Cybele, 35
357, as Demeter, 613 n.t as Juno, 357, as
Luna, 35 n,
— Maesa, sister of Julia Domna, 51 sqq.^
56199., 613; death of, 63
Mamaea, mother of Severus Alexander,
51,56 $qq,f 6131 character of, 63 if 4
of, 5819., 63194 relations with Hippo-
lytus and Origen, 67, 75, 6395 religion of,
675 on campaigns, Gcrmaa, 69, Persian,
69 19- ; murder of, 69; coinage of, 63 19*,
357
— ■ Paula, wife of Elagabalus, 55
Julian, collector of *logia Chaldaica/ 637 19.
— Emperor, 294, 39^, 442 19,, 447, 572,
61S, 633 194 and HisUria Augusta^ qio
Julianus, *correctorVenetiae/ revolt of, 323
— Aediaius, Praetorian Prefect, 82
«— M. Didius, Emperor, buys Empire from
Praetorian Guard, 35 puts Lmius and
Marcia to death, 41 killed, 4 19*
Julius, Bishop of Rome, 172 184
— Avitus, husband of Julia Maesa, 51
— of Caerleon, martyr, 296
Junius Badbus, son-in-law of Gordian I,
79, 81
•— Paimatus, Roman commander, 12S
Juppiter, see ais 4 under 2 eus; Caelus, and
Ahura Mazda, 4305 Capitolinua, cult'of,
in Egypt, 463^4 cmser^ator^ 415194
Damascenus, 427, 151 ; exsupermiisAmuSf
416 j Optimus Maximus, 193, 705, dedica-
tions to, 434; mmmMs exsmermiknmus^
438; Ultor, temple of, at Rome, 66| in-
vests emperors with their powers, 361,
3S7J patron deity of Diocletian, '329194
387, 661, 66S^ on coins, 351, 359, 361,
415 If.'
Jurists, under Scptimius Scvcrus, 22 194
under Severus Alexander, 61
Justin Martyr, Christian author, 430, 443,
46419., 476 194 martyrdom of, 518;
account of Christian worship in, 523
Justinian, 223, 482, 569, 6785 on ihe basis
of sovereignty, 3535 Code of, 89, 7x3
Juthimgi, barbarian tiikt, invade Italy, 1 52,
I j6, 298 Iff., 3C9
Juvenal, 438; leriuliian and, 593 19.
‘Ka*ba of Zoroaster/ at Stakhr, 123
Kachka, discoverks near, ica
Kaluga, province of, discoveries in, izi 19,
Kan Ving, Chinese oilker, 104
Kapos, R,, discoveries near, 108
Khormu2U, Manichaean divine kdng, 512
KkuastMmifi^MMikh&tm document, 51 119,
Kniva, king of the Goths, invades Moesia,
143 1994 defeats Dccius, 144 19.
hUeiimeSf oppn;ssive activity of, in Egypt,
. 22 and fi.
Koursa, Bishop of Edessa, 500
Kosibejevo, discoveries at, lot if.
Kucha, 97 if., 104 '
Kucheaa language, 97
Kmhaiis, 113
Kyriades, see under Mariades
Labarum, original forni of, 683114 borne
by Constantine’s bodyguard, 693 W4
■ triumph of, 696
Lactautius, signihcance of, 7131 De Ira Dei
of, 6501 De MDriBus persecui&mm of,
592, 609, 650, 713; De Opijkm Dei of,
650; Dlvmm Imiitutimes of, 609 if.,
650199., 7135 and Arfiobiiis, 652194
and Cicero, 60919., 6505 and the final
destruction of Rome, 66 1; on Constan-
tine’s adoption of the Christian mono-
gram, 682 19., 6S5 j on Cyprian, 6021 on
Decius, 222J on Diocletian, 399, 402;
on the outbreak of the Great Persecution,
663 194 on the palinode of Gxilcrius,
673 194 on reason for peraecutioii, 677;
on Valerian, 223
Laeliasius, Ulpiw Cornelius, revolts against
Postumus, 191
teri, prisoners settled in the Empire, 397
laetus, Q. Aemilius, Praetorian fVcfeci:,
induces guard to proclaim Pertioax: em-
peror, 1 1 plots agaiMl Pertinax, 2 1 put to
death, 4
Lambaesis, becomes a koionia/ aoj build-
ings at, 551
Land, methods of tenure of, 2t4, 260,
, 273 19., 27S5 State owneahip 0% *7*
. Laodicea (Syria), supports' Septimius Sew-
■ riis, 7j becomes a koloiiia/ 8
GENERAL INDEX
Laterally philosopher sarcophagus in, 557
sqq^j ^ Adonis sarcophagus in, 5655
Basilica of, 569
Latin, Septimius Severus and, 24, 588;
Latin Literature, see Ch. XVii; elocutio
noRjella, 5755 in Asiatic provinces, 7085
poetry, 584 589, 600, 603 sqqr^
Christian authors, 590 sqq.^ 600 ^*97.,
607 ;f99, 5 decline of literature, 606; trans-
iation of the Bible into, 494
Latins, Junian, 46
Laurence, martyr, 522
Law, Jurists and, 23; of commercial trans-
actions, 248; criminal law, 67; codifica-
tion of, 708 ; see also under Lex
Legions, see also under Army 5 Praetorian
Guard recruited from, 24; i Adiutrix, at
Brigetio,48 and with Gdlienus in Italy,
1545 I Illyri corum, in Syria Phoenice,
3085 1 Isaura, recruited by Probus, 316;
I Minervia, and the Franks, 157; i Par-
thica, at Nisibis, 17, 26, 69, in Meso-
potamia, 127, 376; II Adiutrix, in Lower
Pannonia, 37 «. j ii Augusta, at Caerieon,
36 5 II Isaura, see 1 Isaura 5 ii Italica, with
Gailienus in Italy, 154; ii Parthica, at
Aibano, 24, 26,43, 155, 376, in Germany
under Severus Alexander, 71, at siege
of Aquiieia, 80, with GaUienus in Italy,
1555 II Traiana, in Egypt, 6, 8 ?z., 70,
1285 III Augusta, in Africa, 6 and«.,
20 sq,^ 27, 78, disbanded by Gordian III,
845 III Cyrenaica, at Bostra, 127; ni
Galiica, at Raphaneae, 52, 127, in Syria
Phoenice, 52 70, moved to Danaba,
129} III Isaura, see i Isaura^ iii Parthica,
see i Parthica 5 iv Italica, recruited for
Persian war, 655 iv Mar da, in Arabia,
308} IV Scythica, in Coele Syria, 52
127; V Macedonica, at Oescus, 308, in
Persian war of Galerius, 336, new legion
formed from, 397 ; vi Ferrata, in Palesdne,
127, moved to Syria Phoenice, 1295 vi
Victrix at York, 36; vii Claudia, at Vimi-
nacium, 19; vii Gemina, in Spain, 12 j x
Fretensis, in Jerusalem, 127; X Gemma,
in Upper Pannonia, 184, at Vindobona,
4 w.j XI Claudia, at Aquiieia, 398^ Xii
Fulminata,in Melitene, 1275 xiii Gemina,
detachment of, at Aquiieia, 94, at Me-
hadia, 151, at Poetovio, 152, in revolt
of Regahanus, 185, at Ratiaria, 308, in
Persian war of G^erius, 336, new legion
formed from, 3975 xiv Gemina, in Upper
Pannonia, 184; xv Apollinaris, in Cap-
padocia and Armenia, 127; xvi Flavia,
at Samosata, 127 j xx Valeria Victrix, at
Chester, 36; xxii Primigenia, at Mainz,
825 XXX Ulpia, at Vetera, 191; Theban,
Christians in, 662 sq,
Leo Grammaticus, 712
C.A,H* XII
817
leones^ German elite force of Caracalia, 219
Leonidas, father of Origen, 481; martyr-
dom of, 520
Lcptis Magna, ^ birthplace of Septimius
Severus, 21, 24, 589; Arch of (Tetra-
pyion), 545, reliefs on, 547 sq.
leuga^ Celtic measure of distance,
Lex, Leges, Aeiia Sentia, 45 sq. 5 Cornelia
de falsis, 67; Hadriana de rudibus agris,
2 generales, 372; imperii, de imperio,
, regia, 68, 352 sq.\ Julia de aduiteriis, 67 j
Julia maiestatis, 675 metalli Vipascensis,
-■■;243 „
Lezoux, terra sigillata manufactured at, 241
Lian-Shu, trade connection of, with Tyre,
247/2.
Licinianus, Julius Valens, usurper, 167
Licinius Licinianus, Emperor, 346 sqq.f
3953 claims descent from Philip, 94;
character of, 3483 and the Church, 673,
694^9.3 betrothed to Constantia, 6813
and Constantine, 681, 691 ^99. 5 and
Maximin, 350, 681, 688 ^9. 5 defeat of, by
Constantine, 695^9.5 litany used by
army of, 447, 688 sq.
— the younger, becomes Caesar, 693 sq.
Lictors, attend emperors, 2^6 sq.
Limes, in Africa, 20, 86; Chinese, 104x9.5
Dacian (Trajanic), 22, 140, 1505 in
Mauretania, 20, 21 «.5Moesian, 143, 1505
Pannonian, 150, 212, 2195 Raetian, 3,
: 47x9., 154^9.? 186, 308, 3565 between
Rhine and Danube, see under Raetian 3
Wailachian, 142 n., Limites, 208
Liu-ts’ung, son of Liu-yiian, 106
Liu-yuan, Hsiung-nu general, 106
logista thymelae, 85
Logos, the, as counsellor of kings, 6995
doctrine of, 445, 464 sq,, 483^9., 490,
5 ^ 3 > 533
Longinus, rhetorician, 178, 305, 618x9.,
630, 632
Longiones (Lugii), invade Gaul, 314 19.
Longus, Dapknis and Chloe of, 615 sq.
Lo-yang, capital of Chinese empire, 98, 106
Lucian, 582; on religion, 439 sq.
of Antioch, martyr, 687
Lueianus, conspiracy of, 345
Luciila, on coins, 41
Lucius, in Apuleius, 435, 581, 583
— of Patrae, author, 582
Lucretius, Fronto on, 575; used by Arno-
bius, 608 sq., by Lactantius, 610
Ludovisi batde sarcophagus, 553 sq., 558,
565
Luke, Gospel of, and Marcion, 453 ^9.
Luna, divinity, 35^2., 50
Lychnidus, garrison at, 214 ^
Lycopolis in Egypt, Manichaean docu-
ments discovered near, 505
Lycurgus, enemy of Dionysus, 419
5 ^
GENERAL INDEX
8i8
Lydda^ see under Diospolis
Lydiaa iiisaiptioas, 22
Lydios, brigand in Asia Jilinor, 315
Lyons {Liigdimum)^ ia war of Albinas wltb
Septimius Severus* 12 231 Aureiiaa
at| 3095 supports Procuius, 3 16 j perse-
cation of Christians at, 51:8 rf.p'iaserip-
lion at, 855 mint at, 306, 311, 319, 324
Ma, ^far goddess, in Western provinces, 425
Maccdo, commander of Osrhoenian arclien,
■"..■■■73 ■ ■ .
Macedonia, Macedoniam, 4, 6925 roman-
ized communities in, 5^ Caracaila and,
48 if,} ravaged by bjirbarians, 90
Macrianus (i), 136} Qnaxterai'aster-general
in Persian war, 1725 sons of, pradaimed
emperors, ijzsf.y 185, 202; defeat of,
1S5, 2145 ^he Christians, 205, 664
*— (ii) T. Fnivius Junius, son of (i), .pro-
claimed Augustus, 172 if,, 185} kJlieci,
173} see also under Quietus
Macrinus, M. Opeiiius, Praetorian Prefect,.
50 if*; murders Cai-acaiia, 50; pr«Kdaiined
ein|«ror, 505 defeated by Farthiam, 50,
J27; defeated and put to death, 521 in-
creases mobility of troops, 209
Madauros, birthplace of Apulelus, 5S0
M,aeceiia8, ia Cassius Dio., 26 59 1^., 65
Maecia Faustina, daughter of Gordian I,
79, Si
Maeotidae, Goths, invade Asia Minor, 312
Magi, 112, tiS if.
Magic, and Fate, 431510 Egyptian religion,
420 if*
magistery Mbeihrumy 3S91 miUtimy 6%;
o^kmmy 3S9; rei stmmai prsmatmy
3S1, 390; studmmm^ 3S9
Magna Mater, see under Cybele
Magnus, senator, 73
Maukop, silver belt from, 10 1
Main, R., victory of Caracaiia on, 4S
Mainz, 71, 73; legion at, S2; siege of, 1915
cult society of Ma at, 4255 dedications
to Oriental dbides at, 434
MaMas, Johannes, on Gadlienm, 2245 nni-
versa! history of, 71a
MalcMon, presbyter of Antioch, and Paul
of Samosata, 491
Mamaea, see under Julia Mamaea
Mani, Manichaeans, protected by Shapur I,
1 12, 504; abandoned by Vahram I, 113,
504, 5135 Mazdeaa clergy and, 1225
persecution of, by Diocletian, 339, 668
jf.5 ^pcrsistencse , of, 5045 discovery of
Manichaean documents, 504^9., 508, 511,
513, 6281 cosmogony of, 505 on tks
Fall, 472, 506; Bareki^ and, 496x9.,
506, 5105 Ephraiin aa^
507199*1 patatmgs and miniatuiwi of,
124 19.
MarceillaLiius, conspiracy of, in favour of
Mixentiusj, 345
Marcsiiinus, Bishop of Romcj 679
*— Prefect of Mesopotamia, 304 sq,
Marcellus, Bishop of Rome, banished, 679
— conspiracy of, 345
— martyr, 659 663 and ?s,, 693
Marcia, consort of Commodus, put to death
by Dldius Julianus, 4
Marcianopolis, teieged by Goths, 92, 143,
1491 destroyed, 145
MarcianiiS, officer of Gailieaus, i$Oy 1S9,
723
Marcion of Ftmius, tlit‘ult.*gn‘al schirric of,
452 xf,; Bible of, 453 .ry*; at Rome, 531,
5335 attacked by IcTtuilian, 590, 593
Marcomanai, invade Faniioiiia, 139, 147,
1815 raid Italy, 139, 154 «*, 181 ; war of
Galerius with, 334.
Marcus, gnostic, 472
Margus, valley of the, batik in, 323, 662
Mark di Capua, St, Mkhraeum at, 429
Mariadcs (Kyriades), Roman deserter,
.134x99,, 138, 171
Mariaaus, poet, 5S6 n,
Marinianus, son of Gallienm, 1 89 if*
Marians, father of Philip, 87; consecrated,
89
Marius, M. Aurelius, succ»or of Fostuinus,
. 192 • ■ . . ■ ■
— Maximus (L. Marius Maximus Per-
petuus Aureiitims), legale ia Lower
Moesia, 75 consul, 62 ; biographies by, 599
— ¥lctorinus, author, 585
Marmarldae, African tribe, 180, 314 «*
Maraas, god of G».a, 4475 teiiipk of, at
■ Ostia, 427 .
Mars, Coccidiiis, 432; Galerius as son of,
■ ^3J7i invests emperors with tlieir power,
. 36. 1 , 3 69 5 on coins, 3 1 3 3®^ 3 S L 3 59> 4 * *
Martial, on Oriental cults, 438
Martialis, Q* Gargilius, .historian, killed in
Numidia, 182; biographies by, 599
Massiiia, *adventu8 Imperatoruiii* at, 328
Matres, Matroaae, goadesacs, 432 jf.
Mattel, Ftdazzo, sarcophagus ia, 550, 554;
Muses sarcophagus m, 555
Mauretania, ao, 22, 845 two Mauretaiiias,
26#. 5 fortiied settlements on frontier of, 86
Mauri, Moors, disorders among, 68; revolt
of» jaS, supproasd by MMimiaa, 333x9.5
Moorish javclinmcn, 73, 188, 199 Xf., im-
portance of, 215 If.; Mewrish twp# on
Northern frontkr, 90
Maudoe, St, 662
Maurus, Terendaaw, work on i»tre,
584 1|.
Maxentms, Emperor, becoaM prmepSf 345,
4025 quwrrdb with Mtedmiao, 3465 de-
clared public enemy, 3.085 mh of, in
Italy, 3491 Mttdiiiinw Dak, 61 if
GENERAL INDEX
war with Constantine, 68 1 sqq,*^ and the
Christians, 658, sq.\ death of> 683;
character of, 3485 basilica of, 568*f^.j
circus of, 5695 vaults temple of Venus
and Roma, 5695 coinage or, 350x5^,
Maximian, Emperor, 327 344
4145 becomes Caesar and Augustus, 3275
Hercules patron deity of, 329^7., 387,
661; campaigns against Bagaudae, 327,
against barbarians, 327 sq.^ againstMoors,
333 'f?* 5 supports Constantius against
Carausius, sqq,*, abdication of, 340,
342; becomes Augustus again, 345; at
conference of Carnuntum, 347, 6705 and
Constantine, 346, 349, 6805 and Max-
entius, 3465 and the Christians, 66 zsq.\
death of, 680; character of, 348 5 coinage
359 ? 6^0, 717
Maximilian, martyr, 659 663, 693
Maximiila, Montanist prophetess, 456 ^“77.
Maximinus, governor of Syria, 3115 mur-
dered, 312
— C, Julius Verus (l), Emperor, family of,
72 j commander in Pannonia, 71, in
Egypt, 72; praefectus Mesopotamiae, 72,
tironibusy 723 proclaimed emperor, 715
character of, 725 recognized by Senate,
72} plot against, 73; besieges Aquikki
79J7.5 German campaign of, 73/7., 84,
154J persecutes Christians, 75, 520, 5345
policy of, 74 sq,y financial, 76 j murdered,
805 pictures of German campaign of, 560 j
portrait of, 553; public works and roa^i
building, 74; coinage of, 74, 79
— C. Julius Verus (ir), son of (i) above, be-
comes Caesar, 74; murdered, 80; educa-
tion of, 571, 597
— Daia, Emperor, becomes Caesar, 340,
669 ; dominions of, 342 5 character of, 343 ;
filius Augustoruniy 3475 seeks to become
Augustus, 620; quarrel with Licinius,
350, 681 } war with Licinius, 688 J7.; and
Maxentius, 681; Constantine and, 685,
688 ; religious policy of, 414, 670, 687 ^7.5
persecution of Christians by, 669 J77,,
686^7.; issues edict of toleration, 689;
death of, 350, 689, 696; coinage of, 418
Maximus, defends Marcianopolis, 92
— P. Aelius Severianus, governor of
Arabia, 8 n,
— of Ephesus, Neopiatonist, 443, 638
— of Tyre, 440
Mazdean Church, Religion, see also under
Zoroaster, 118 577.; (high) officials of,
1 15, 12 1 ; systems of, iiSj fire worship
in, 119 sqq,% fire temples, 1205 and other
religions, 12 1 ^7.
Media, taken by Ardashir I, 126
Medicine, decline of, 621
Medinet M^di, Manichaean writings dis-
covered at, 628
819
Mehadia, legion at, 151
Melitene, revolt in, 666
Melito of Sardis, apologist, 461, 486, 661
Memor, revolt of, 174
Men Tyrannos, identified with Attis, 425;
temple of, at Sunium, 410 «.
Menapii, Constantius and, 332
Menophilus, consular, at siege of Aquileia,
79 j governor of Lower Moesia, 81,84 -^77*?
ijLQsq,
mercatoreSy zS^yfrumentarii, 31, oleariiy 31
Mercurius in Gaiil, 433
Meroe, 271
Mesene, port oh Persian Gulf, 118
Meshiha-Zeka, chronicler, 496
Mesomedes, 439
Mesopotamia, Parthian policy towards, 9;
invaded by Parthians, 16, 50, by Per-
sians, 69 sq,y 81, 86 sq,y 127 sqq.y 132 sq,y
iqisq.‘y taken by Carus, 3225 Persians
surrender claim to, 328, 336; army in, ii,
^9? 37^5 province of, 17, 26, 49, 88;
governed by an eques, 376; veterans
settled in, 32 n.
Mestrianus, ambassador of Licinius,
692
Metaurus, R., Aurelian defeats barbarians
on, 156, 299
Methodius, Bishop of Olympus in Lycia,
works of, 617 ^7., 634
Milan, siege of, 189 sq^yColonia Gallienianay
213; Diocletian and Maximian meet at,
328, 388; Constantine and Licinius meet
at, 686, 688 ^7.5 ‘Edict of Milan,’ 686,
688^9'.; mint at, 189, 192x7., 301, 310,
, 718 '■
Miletus, walls built at, 148 n.
militia, name used of civil service, 382,
395x7.
Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, 679; and the
Donatists, 693
Miivian Bridge, victory of Constantine at,
350, 682 X77.; represented on Arch of
Constantine, 566
Minerva, and Elagabalus, 55; Medica, so-
called temple of, at Rome, 561; temple of,
at Tebessa, 551; on coins, 330
Mines, in Britain, 240, 273, 288 X77.5 in
Dacia, 240, 277; in Spain, 243, 277; in
hands of great landlords, 274; shortage
of labour for, 276 sq.
Mints, distribution of, 714x77.
Minucius Felix, apologist, 595x77., 647;
date of, 597; Cyprian and, 601; Ter-
tuiiian and, 590 597
Minusinsk, discoveries near, 10 1 xy., 108
Miran, discoveries at, 99
Mithra, Mithraism, 409; archaeological evi-
dence for, 428x7.; ceremonies of, 429;
Commodus and, 413; Diocletian restores
temple of, at Carnuntum, 414; nature of,
52-2
820
GENERAL INDEX
430 If. 5 in Persian religion, 119 jf,, 430; ;
^preaa of, 41 i if., 428, in Britaia, 295 if., ■ '
111 Daiiutie region, 422, in 432 1?.,.
in fburih century, 4471 ni opposition to '■
Christianity, 447 and n.
Modena, taken by Constantine, 682
Modesiinus, Herennins, jurist, 30
Moesia, 19, 147, 692 j ravaged by Bar-
.barians, fo, 140 iff., 167 if. j invaded by
ICniva, 1435 supports Ingeauus, 1.845
Diocletian in, 32S5 army in, 6, 7 ri.j forti-
fications in, 85 5 roads in, 85 § coins minted
in, 855 coinage, 85, 90, 93 141,. 147
Mof ontiacum, see under Maiiu
Monarchianism, see aim under Sabelliusj .at
Rome,. 5335 and Montanism, 45-85 at-'
tacked by Tertullian, 590
mmetarii, strike of, idy, 300 and n.
Mongolia, Hsiung-nu of, 103, 1055 Juan-
J'ua.ri in,' 106 if.
Mont Gen^vre, pass of, 681
Montaaism, Montaiius, 456 iff., 5371 in-
scriptions, 459 and n, 5 later history of, 460
Moors, see under Mauri
Mosaic cosmogony, 4415 Eusebius on, 641
Moses, classical writers borrow from, 4625
. "priori'ty of, to Homer, 641
Mother of the Gods, ire under Cybeie
■Muratoriaa. Canon, * 459
Mursa, victory of GaElenus at, 184
Museo Torionia, sarcophagus in, 557
Museum at Alexandria, 619 iff., 639
Myiasa in Caria, decree of, 27
Maasse,iies, 446
Namus, see under Nish
Naqsb-e-Rajab, reliefs at, 123 and 124
Naqsb-e-Rostam, reliefs at, xaj and
Narona in lEyrlcum, 321
Narsab (Narses I), ^ King of Persia, 1x3 if.,
335 ^9?* 5 invades Syria, 3365 de-
feated by Galerius, 3365 relief of, 1235
inscriptions of, 1x3, 123 ».
blaulobatus, Herulian chief, receives con-
sular insignia, 149, 162
namemkrii^ guild of, 31, 259, 2655 of Arks,
31 of Nile and Tiber, 308
Neapolis (Italy), Oriental cults at, 432
•— (Palestine), 85 becomes a ‘coioma,*'88
Nehttceius and Co., trading firm, 2,91 n.
Nemesianus, M. Aurelius Oiympicus, poet,
works of, 605 If.
Nemesis, 421
Neophry.^^aa inscriptions, 422
Neoplatonism, 44s lyf., 621 iff. 5 and art,
55719.5 and Christianity, 207, 44219.,
630199., 64S19,, 665, 6695 and gno^,
62719.5 and pa|aaism, 631:19., 63619.,
7055 St Augustine and, 6295, Gafikaus
and, 188} supports Diodetian, 3395 at
Palmyra, 2785 division of the school, 645'
Keopythagoreanisni, 33c, 44-
Kepos, Egyptian bidsop, 4^7
Neptune, on denam c4 Septiiiiius J^fvercs,
:■ 4 ^': '
Kero, Eni|S€ror, access iuii «,ff, 369 i Baths of,
enlarged, 665 coinage of. 7165 and in -
■ fiatbn of coinage, 7 24
Nerva, Emperor, dedication to, by Septi-
, mius Severus, 13, 3555 coinage of, 716
Nestor of Laraiida, poet, 6 1 1
Nev-Shapur (Kishapur), foimdcd by
■ Shap'ur I, 1 1 1 . .
Mkaea m Bithynia, 75 taken by barbarians,
X4S5 Council of, 6931 697 If., 699
Nicagoras, sophist, 89
Nicephorium, ill Persian war, 129
Micomedia, supports Sepiimius Severus, 7;
Caracalk winters in, 495 Eiigabalus
'winters in, 535 taken by Goths, 1485
cathedral at, destnited, jxfrsecuiiun
at, under Maxirrdn, 68619.5 toleration
edicts issued i'li, 6S9
Kicopolis, in Moesia, Icsieged by Kniva,
1445 Roman victory at, 144
Mger, C. Fesmmius, governor of Syria, 1 5,
1.8, 275 proclaimed em|>eror, 3, 5 if.; war
with Severus, 6199.5 killed, 85 curre-
■ spondence of, with Parthian king, 9
Nile, R., and Red Sea canal, 2345 wnwif/arii
of, 308
Nish, victory of Gallleaus at, 149 if., 1S9,
72,3; Constantine bom at, 678
Nisibis, ‘coionia' established at, 9; capital
of province of Mescq?otanna, 175 defeat
of Macrlnus near, 505 besieged by Par-
thians, 16, by Persians, 69, 1275 Shapur
repulsed from, 1325 Shapur takes, 86,
130 and fi., 132, 1725 «taken by Timesi-
theus, S7, X3i,by Odenathus, 1745 * Julia/
' 88 5 centre for Romaiio-Persian cornmera,
336 If* ^
Nomads, In Central Asia, 99 19. ; character
of, 1035 struggles of, 104x99.
Noreia, goddess, identified with Isis, 426
dedications to, 433
Noricuro, 55 roads in, 13, 195 economic
progress in, 240 19. 5 inscription from, 39S
Netitia Digniiaiumt 3^ it70, 292
Novae, in Moesia, 143
Novatian, Roman presbyter, schism of,
53919., 6005 works of, on the Trinity,
539 n,y 6o2, de eibis ludaicis^ 601
Novempoputoa, new province in Gaul, 391
Novochfirkaak, treasures found at, 100 if.
Numcnius of Apamea, philosopher, 441,
446, 622
numerif military units, 33, 211 199.5
numerus FaimjfmQrumf in NiiniMia, 86 j
bound to the soil, 212
Numerian, Emperor, 3225 murifcrtd, 322,
' ■ 606 5 oratory and poetry of, 321, 606
GENERAL INDEX
Numerianus, impostor in Gaul, izn.
Numidia, 20, 32 frontier of, 20, ^zsq.^
becomes separate province, 21, 27; at-
tacks on, 1825 divided, 392
Nymphae Forrinae (i.e. Furrinae), 434
Occidental traders, 246 sq.
Octavius Januarius, in Minucius Felix,
595
Odenathus, King of Palmyra, 112, 135 sq.,
lyz sqq.^ attacks barbarians, 148, 175;
defeats Shapur, 172, 174^7.; kills Cal-
listus, 173; army of, 1745 relations with
Rome, 174^^9-.; murdered, 175; domi-
nions of, 176; sons of, 724
— the younger, see under Vabaliathus
Athenodorus
Oescus, legion at, 153, 308
qfficia, bureaux of State departments, 382,
395
otkoumene, 409, 646
Olbia, inscriptions of, 142
Oppian, poet, 61 1, 613
Oracles, Chaldaic, 441, 6375 Clarian, 441
Orbiana, Cn. Seia Herennia Saliustia
Barbia, wife of Severus Alexander, 63
Ordos, discoveries in, loi sq.
Oriental senators, 25, 376; traders, 246 sq.
Origen, 477 sqq.^^ life and works of, 481 sqq.y
639; visits Mamaea, 67, 75, 656, Fir-
milian, 489; relations with Philip, 94;
Contra Celsum of, 203, 485 sqq.y 647 sq.y
712; exegesis of, 484 jy.; Exhortation to
Martyrdom of, 75; and gnosticism, 484;
influence of, 649; and military service,
659; philosophical system of, 482
Methodius and, 617 5 Paul of Samosata
and, 490 jy.; Porphyry and, 632
Ormuzd, 69, ii8^y.; investiture of kings
by, 123
Orontes, R., victory of Aureiian at, 303
Orosius, ad'versum Paganos of, 712
Orphics, 634, 637
Osiris, cult-drama of, 412, 426
Osrhoene, becomes a province, 9; under the
Abgars, 10, 17, 87, 1 30, 493 5 incorporated
into Mesopotamia, 49 j archers from, 73,
128, 199, 216; cavalry from, 128; Chris-
tians from, 203
Ostia, 245 ^y., 248; Piaxzale delle Cor-^
porazioni at, 246
Ostrogoths, 146 n.
ojfzW, liabilities of, 396
Oued Djedi (Nigris R.), line of, 20, 86
Oxyrhynchus, money-changers at, 266
Pabhagh, kills Gochihr, king of Persis,.
109
Pacatianus, C. Julius, procurator of the
Cotdan Alps, 29 7 t,
— Ti. Claudius Marinus, usurper, 92 5 y.
821
Pahlavi, 1115 religious books, 118; in-
scriptions {Ka‘ba of Zoroaster), 120, in
synagogue at Doura, 12 1
Pahlezagh, king, defeated by Shapur I, n i,
1331
Paikuli, great inscription of, 113, 116
Palatine, shrine of baal of Emesa on,
54,
Palestine, Septimius Severus and, 18;
Martyrs of Palestine^ of Eusebius, 7135
persecution of Christians in, 669 sqq.,
674sqq.
Palfuerius, see under Lydius
Pallas Athena, on seals, 98
Palmyra, see also under Zenobiaj Persian
attacks on, 112; kingdom of, 173 ryy.,
703; and Rome, 178, 301 jyy.; siege of,
3045 destruction of, 30^5 ; archers from, at
Doura, 175, 418; light troops from, 128;
trading association at, 278 n . ; effect on
trade of capture of, 2775 inscription at,
1295 palace at, 568; relief at, 114; coins
of, 192, 301 sq.y 716
Palut, Bishop of Edessa, consecrated by
Serapion of Antioch, 495, 497, 503
Pamphilus, Christian scholar, 639, 653;
martyrdom of, 639
Pan Cnao, Chinese general, 104, 235
Pan Yong, son of Pan Ch’ao, 105
PanegyristSy Latin, 6065 historical value of,
712
Pannonia, Upper, 3, 48, partly ceded to
barbarians, 139, 18 ij Lower, 37 48,
141 regrouped by Caracalla, 485 re-
organized by Gallienus, 186; army in,
48, 64, 71, and Gallienus, 173; Batavian
cohort in, 2115 barbarian invasions of,
139, 147, 1 8 1, 2995 barbarians settled in,
212; Diocletian in, 328} Constantine and,
692^9.; economic development of, 240
ry. 5 roads in, 19
Pantaenus, 479 and «,
Pantheon, repair of, 551
Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus), jurist,
Praetorian Prefect, 23, 28^9.5 put to
death by Caracalla, 43
Papylus, martyr at Pergamum, 518
Parsees, give up Zervanism, 118
Parthia, Parthians, intrigue with Niger, 9 j
expeditions of Septimius Severus against,
9 sq.y 16 sq.y of Caracalla, 48 sqq.i, fall of
Parthian empire, 68 sq.y 126, 703; paint-
ing, influence of, 548
patrimoniumy and fiscusy 275 estates of, 2435
and res prkjotay 381
Paul, St, 444^9.5 Marcion and, 452x9.;
circulation of the Epistles of, 453x9.;
on prophecy, 455; Epistles of, in Syriac,
503/9.
— jurist, 23, 589
— martyr, 677
822
C3ENERAL INDEX
Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antlocli, and.
Zenobia, lyE 302; controFcrsy coa* .
cerning*, 492^77.; deposition of, 303,-
493
Pax DtomMf 656, 658
Pax Romana, 233 w,, 654
Pepuza, in Phrygia, 457 sqq»
Pergamwni, martyrs at, 51S
Perinthns, in campaign of Septimins Se?erm
against Niger, 7^ 1 1 ; surrenders to Maxi-
, min, 6SS
Perm, discoveries near, 101
PeroE, brother of Sbapiir I, coins of, 121 ..
Perpetua, ¥ibia, martj’r, Passim of, 520,.
594
PersepoHs, gmjprf at, 124
Persia, Persians, icc also under Sassanids;
!>ecom« great power, 69, 109 179., 7033
organisation of, no sq, ; wars with Rome,
6 ^'sqq.^ 81, III, 113, 12 $ sqq.f 1% sqq.,
314, 321^9., 335 5 Probos and, 31.6;
army of, iso 5 Iranian cavalry in Roman
army, 2 x 6 sqq,^ art, Iranian, lOO; com-
merce of, 1 17 ry* 5 language, East Iranian,
97; religion, see under Mazdean Church,
... Zoroastrianism; reliefs, 1x2
Persis, 109
Pertinax, P. Helvim, Emperor, carar of, i,
5S85 reign of, 2; murder of, 3; Septimius
represents' himself as avenger of, 4; apo--
thewis of, 5; commercial activities of,'
239
PermgiMum Veneris^ 5S6 sqq,
Peshilta, 502' ry, ■
Pessinus, attacLed by barbarians, 147, 169
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, martyr, 687. ■
Petra Pertusa {Umbria), brigandage in, 90
Peucini, barbarian tribe, 92
‘Pfabigraben,* 48
Phaeton sarcophagus, Borghese, 563
Philip the Arabian (C. Julius Pbilippus),-
Emperor, 87 ryy., 131, 165 ry.; family of, '
87; enters Rome, 88; celebrates secular -
.. . games, 91 5 character and policy of,, 89
makes peace with Persia, 131; victory
over 'Germans and Carpi, 90, 14219.1
revolts against, 92 ry.; war with Becius,
93 ry,, 1 65194 and the frontiers, 214;
killed, 941 and Christianity, 92, 9419.5
portrait of, 553 $ and temple at Heliopolis,
561 ; coinage of, 90, 93, 417
— Bishop of Heiadea, Fassio of, 676
Philippopolis (Thrace), 692; ‘colonia*
founded at, 8S; fortilM by Philip, 1431
sieges of, 143x9., i44'‘if., 1495 tasen by
Goths, 144,
—.(Tmehonitis}, cokftm founded at, 88
Philppti% Ivf • Julius Severus, son of Philip,
Emperor, becomes Caesar, 88, 365,
Auj^stus, 91 Pontifcx Maxim usr9X|'
murdered, 94 ^
Philo of Alexandria, 444 sq,
■— of Byblus, 422
Philosophy, see also utider Xtoplatonism;
and religion, 440x77.; the A^pologists
■ and, 461 xyy.; and State »rvice. 660
Philostorgius, 634
Fhilostratus, 612 xyy,; life of Apollonius of
Tyaoa, 6i'4xy..
Phn^gia, see also under Montanism; blood
baptism in, 409 w.; destruction of Chris-
tian town in, 674 ' , ,
— and Carla, province of, 392 xy.
'Fianifoor, discoveries at, xoi
Tilate, Acts of, 687 .■
PIstdfa, 6871 coinage of, 179
Puds S&pkidf gnostic document, 469, 472
Pityus, defended by Successianus, 134, 170;
. captured by Borani, 14S
.Placentia, bar b;irians occupy, 156, 299
Aurelian defeated oeai*, 299
Pladdianus, Julius, officer of Claudius,
192
Plague, outbreaks of, 167x7., 171, 1,98,
205 If., 227 x7.., 260, 65.S, 6SS
'Plato, and Neoplatonism, -62 5, 629, 636 xyy.;
and gnosticism, 627; and Eastern ideas,
■628; Eusebius and, 641 ■
Platonism,. Midd.Ie, 440 xy .
Flato.nop0!is, 676 .
Flautianus, C. Fulvius, Praetorian Frefcci,
. : i9ryy.| murdered by Caracalla, 11, 23;
■ ambition:'of,'2S"
Flautiila, wife of Caracalla, 19, 21
pkbs urbana^ Sf.iz
Pkroma, in system of Valentinus, 470
.FHny the Elder,. 43S
— the Younger, and Trajan, 259, 516 sq,
Plotinus, Neoplatonist, 442, 621 xyy., 65x1
life of, 621 xf.; on expedition of Gordian,
622; friend of Gallienus, 556, 605, 676;
teaching of, 622 xyy., 635 sqq , ; opposition
of, to gnosis, 627x9., 648; ana State
service, 660
Plutarch, religious' ideas 'o.f, 439, 44.6
Poetovio, .13; garrison of, 152; MIthraea
at, ^422, 4%^
Political factors in third century, 193 xyy.
Folycai^, Bishw of Smyrna, Epistk i§ tke
■ PMEppims of, 474; and Irenaeus, 474;
visit of, to Rome, 5325 witoem for Pauline
corpus^ 454 «.
Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, and the
Quartodeciman controversy, 488, 532
Fompeianus, Frankish offiar, 162
Pontianus, Bishop of Rome, deported to
Sardinia, 75, 94, 534
j^tsdfex maximmf 412
Famtus, |wisecation of Christia^m in, 75
Forphyrio, cofnmentator, 600
Porphyry, Bishop of Gm, cnccnmier of,
with Julia the Manichama, 514
GENERAL INDEX
Porphyry, Neoplatonist, 441 sqq., 572, 618
sq,, 629 sqq., 660; called Malchus, 6185
and Christianity, 64, 202, 6$o sqq,^ 649;
and Jesus, 649 and Plotinus, 622 sq,y
629 and paganism, 561 sq.y 633, 636
sq.*y comparison with Celsus, 632^9., 6495
work ‘Against the Christians’ proscribed,
6345 Eusebius and, 640 sqq^i Jerome on,
'■■■ ^ 34 ''
Porticos Octavia, 551
Post, see under cursus fuhlicus
Postumus, M. Cassianus Latinus, revolt of,
^55> ^5^? 185^97., 3695 defends
Rhine frontier, 158, 187; Gallic empire
of, 187, 7035 seizes Britain and North
Italy, 1875 killed, 1915 portrait of, 5573
coinage of, 158, 187, 189, 226, 320, 359,
363, 374, 418, 556, 55^^717
Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons, martyr, 519
praefectus, Aegypti^ 22, 394, 400 sq.y aerarto
Batumi, 715, gentium^ 21 1 legionis,
'^*]qy Mesopotamiae,q%f tirmibus, 72 j
Prefect, of Annona, 28, 54, 401, powersof,
extended, 308 ; of the City, 28, 53, 62, 31 1,
380, 391, 395, ^icarius of, 394; of the
Praetorian Guard, powers of, enlarged,
28, controls Prefecture of Annona, 28,
401, change in position and rank of, 60 J7.,
74, 379 and provincial administration,
82, appeal to the emperor from, 89,
power of, in third century, 201, 379:f7.,
under Diocletian, 388 rg., financial
powers of, 381, ^carii of, 393 sq.
praeposith commanders of legionary detach-
ments, 398
praepositus equitibus Dalmatis comitafensibus,
398; sacri cubkuUy 388
praeseSf 26 and 377, 392 sq., 395
Praetorian Guard, also under Prefect;
and Pertinax, i, 3; puts Empire up for
auction, 3 ; and Septimius Severus, 4 ; re-
constituted by Septimius, 5, 33; recruited
from legionaries, 24; murders Elagabalus,
56, Ulpian, 63 sq,<, Pupienus and Bai-
binus, 81; under ^verus Alexander, 63
causes disorder, 6% sqq., 80; sup-
pressed by Severus, 345; supports
Maxentius, 345, 349
Prastina MessaHinus, governor of Lower
Moesia, 90
Praxeas, Monarchian, attacked by Ter-
tullian, 593
primipilh 25, 377 sq,
princeps, principate, see Chap. X; and auto-
cracy, 1^1 sqq., 3875 basis of, sq.-^
Cassius Dio on, 352 sqq,^ 7 1 o ; in third cen-
tury, 383; change in the character of, 227;
dedications by, 412; deification of, 372,
7045 dynastic succession to, 370^7.;
method of appointment, 368 sqq.^ re-
ligious sanction for, 353 sq.f 356 sqq,i and
823
Senate, 372 ^77.5 the Tetrarchy and,
3^sq,
prindpalesy id, 209
Priscilla, Montanist prophetess, 456, 458
Priscus, Neoplatonist, 63 8
— C. Julius, brother of Philip, 87 sqq., 92
— T. Julius, pretender, 144, 167
Probus, Emperor, officer of Aurelian, 308,
^12 sqq. ^ accession of, 313; character of,
313 sq.^ drives barbarians from Gaul,
314 ^7.5 settles, Bastarnae in Thrace, 139
sq., 2^6 f Franks in the Empire, 319; re-
volts against, 3 1 5 ^7. ; and the army, 317/7.;
and Persia, 3 14, 3 1 6 ; and the Senate, 3x8;
triumph of, 317; encourages viticulture
in the provinces, 271, 317; killed, 317;
consecrated, 318; portrait of, 353, 564;
coinage of, 319 sq., 359> 7^9
— Tenagino, Prefect of Egypt, 180, 314 n.
Proclus, Neoplatonist, 638
Proculus, revolt of, 316 and n.
procurator, procuratores, activity of, 27; in
charge of res pri<vata, 28, 381; functions
of, under Gordian III, 82 sq.*, sent as act-
ing governors to Imperial provinces, 26;
civilians as, 382; arcae expeditionis, 1725
monetae, 714; patrimonii, 85; sacrarum
cognitionum, ^ice praesidis, 376
grower/, legionary cavalry, 216 sq., 379
proshpnesis, 362 sq., 388, 659
protectores, emperor’s bodyguard, 219/7.,
378,39^
Protesilaus, revelations of, 441
Protoctetus, Christian, 73
Procidentia deorum, on coins, 334, 360
Provinces, division of, into smaller units, ii,
15, 21, 27, 36/7., 390/77.; under
Gordian III, 82 sq.*, Diocletian and, 390
^77.; procurators govern Imperial, 26;
economic progress of, 239/77.; internal
trade of, 244 /77, ; prosperity of, 248 sqq.*,
mints in, 714, 717; see also under the
several provinces
Prudentius, on Cyprian, 602
Prusa, taken by barbarians, 148
Ptolemaeus, gnostic, on Old Testament,
451; used by Irenaeus, 469
Ptolemaic astronomy, and gnosticism,
467 sqq.
Ptolemais, revolt of, %i6
Ptolemy, geographer, 97 sq.
Punic language, 24, 612
Pupienus (M, Clodius Pupienus Maximus),
Emperor, qZ sqq.*, in campaign against
Maximinus, 79/7.; quarrel with Balbinus,
80/7.; murdered, 81
purpura, as symbol of sovereignty, 365 sq.
Puteoli, decline of, 243 ; tauroboUum at, 423 ;
Tyrian group in, 427; Mithraism in,
43'^,
Pythagoras, Pythagoreans, $13/7.
GENERAL INDEX
824
Quadu 9c, 15?; pliitifier Pannonia, 139,
zSi; drlMtini by C :irwst 3:^1
(^aadraiiiSj apnlu»ist^ 4t1a, 463
Christian prophet? 433
guafsthnes cessation of? aS
QiJartinus, K^nator, 73
Quartockciman controversy, 4SS and ■
SIX;, , ■ y ■
C^attoor Coronati, martyrdom of, 66z
Qnietos, T. Fiilvius JuiiiiH, son of Mae-
rianus, proclaimed Augustus, 136, 17a Jf. 5
defeated and executed at Emesa, tyi sq.
qum/ecim^ziri sacris fncmnditi 41 1
{^uinquegentanei, Moorish confederacvi at-
tack Xumidia, iSji| revolt of, 313 V
Quiinilius, stmator, put to death, a 3
— Xf. Aurelius, brrrthcr of Claudius,
proclaimed ernfwror, 192, 297; commits
suicide, 193; coinage of, iBo and
192 297 and 31 1
Quirinal, temples on, 413
Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, 500; .revision of
Syriac Kew Testament by, 502 sq,
Raetia, see also under Limes ^ army in, 84,
1S9, 3565 barbarian attacks on, 1.54 199.5
Diocletian and, 3285 economic progress
of, 2405 part of, evacuated by Gallienus,
i555roaasiii, £3, i95secured by Aurelian,
■ i37.,,by'Probmr.3i5
Raphaneae, legion at, 52, 127
Ratiaria, legion at, 153, 308
■ mim purpuraria^ 65"
rationaiis Jtsd^ 28, 381, 390; official in
. charge of a mint, 715
Ravenna, raided by barbarians, 139 and »,
Rawak, bas-reliefs and seals at, 9S
Red Sea, fleet in, 233 .rf. 5 and Nile canal,
234
Red Tower Pass, 22
Regalian, revolt of, lyr, ^55 «.» 184^9.5
coins of, 184
Religion, see ais^s under Christian ity^, SW5
attitude of the Empire to, 412, o? indi-
vidual emperors to, 41 2 ,199.5 and Imperial
unity, 705 J9. 5 and the Prindpate, 353 ^9. 5
the Tetrarchy and, 329 ^9.5 Solar cult
set up by Aurelian, 193, 309, 7195 Em-
peror-worship, 194, 355 /99,, 370, 386 sq,t
431, 436, 65819.; gods as OTotectors of
the emperor, 319; army ana, 433 jy,; in
third century, 649 19.5 paganism in murth
century, 447, 7055 vitality^ of local cults,
41919., 433^ henothelsm, 420, 441,
447; syncretism, 67, 437 19., 614 19.; and
philosophy, 67; Eg3rptiaii, in Western
provinces, 412 199.; Oriental, 409 199., tri
Greece, 409 iff., on Rhine frontier, 434,
in Rome, 411^9., in Western provinces,
422199., qualitative^ as'i^cts of, 434199.,
and Christianity, 443 199., -'in art,- 436;'
Roman, 411199., sn Britain, 194^9., in
Gaul, 295, Xlaxeniius and, 351, reactinri
lowairds tradition, under &Teri;s Altx-
aoder, 585 Syrian, 425179.? 434, in
Western provinces, 427 ry., 61417,, baai
worship, 51 Iff, 4^2
Res privata^ 15, 27 ly., 381? 395
Resaina, lieeomrs a 'robsnia/ lyj Roman
victory at, 87, 1 31
Rhein^abern, terra thiyillaU mrmiifactured
at, 241,19. ,
Rhetors, appointed iiy nninicip.ilities, S3
Rhine, E„ Lower, 12, rp|HT, 3 srp* 7; army
on, 3 , 5, 1 4 19., 2 2 fl 7 u 1 69, 1 9 X , 2CS, 2411
barbarian pmsure rm, 157 if., 314, jsSj
Comiandiie and, 68i, 6925 forw esla-
blishtd Ivyond, 315; fnmtkr of, 22, 72,
154199., 308
Rhineland, disorders in, 22; rcxids in, 25
importanre of, 14?, 157, 17.5
Rictiovarus (Reciafarus), 662 and n.
Roads, in Britain, 40, 42 ?«.; from Euphrates
crossings, 17; in Gaul, 14, repaircil by
Septiiniiis Severus, 25 fi.| In 'Roman
Germany, repaired by Caracal la, 48 ; in
Northern presvinws, repaired by Septi-
mius Severus, 13. 19, 33, by &venii
Alexander, 665 from Moesia to Dacia,
143, 1515 from Pannonia to Ac|uilcia,
139 «. 5 in Rhineland, 25#. 5 built under
Maxi minus, 74; built for purpoau of
trade, 234; ease of travel by, 233 19.;
S/rafa Dimkikma^ 397; Viaei Aemilk;,
156, Appia, sarcophagus from, 549, 554,
Egnatia, 6, Flaminis, 6, 156, 682, Salaria,
sarcophagus from, 557
Rogatianus, Mmator, refuses cilice, 660
Roma, goddess, invests eiiiprorH with their
power, 360 19., 3691 temple of Venus and
Roma, at Routes 412, 569
Roman People, and the efeciitw c€ em-
perons, 368, 370
Romanus, C, Julius, grammarian, 6co
Rome, Septimius StTcriis 45 Septi-
miiis &verus at, after victory over
Albinus, 15; Elagabalus enters, 53;
Syrian rites in, 54 19.; disorders in, iincler
Severus Alexander, 63 19., under Pupknus
and Balbiiim, 8019,; 3495
Alemamii reach, 154, 3745 revolt of
mmefarii ztf 267, 300 and w.| revolt at, in
favour of Maxentiua, 3455 walls
■ 300, 374, 68 1 19.5 Christianity in, 530
199., 679 19., 7125 organization of Church
in, and Church of Alexandria,
^542 19.1 milknriiuiii of, 91, 6565 declining
import'ance of, tio; signiicanof of, 374
If., 3865 unifying forcr in culture, 5715
' wearing of uniform in, 364; buildings at,
under Aurelian, 308, IDecius, 19S,
Gordian III, S4, Septlmius Severw, 551
GENERAL INDEX
sq.^ Severus Alexander, 66; sarcophagus
from, 559; mint at, 300, 310, 319
Romuia (Recka), colonia, inscription at, 93
Romulus, son of Maxentius, death of, 349
Rosmerta, goddess, 432
Rotomagus (Rouen), mint at, 333
Roxolani, 150
Rufinianus, L. Caesonius Lucillus Macer,
Proconsul of Africa, 81
Ruhnus, translator of Origen, 482 ; of the
Clementine Recognitions, 616; of Euse-
bius, 643
— Cocceius, murderer of Odenathus, 176,
'■"177 ■ ■
Rufius Volusianus, suppresses revolt in
Africa, 349
Rufus, L. Novius, governor of Hispania
Tarraconensis, 12
Ruricius, Pompeianus, general of Max-
entius, 682
Russia, South, corn exports from, 244
Rutupiae (Richborough), mint at, 333
Sabeliius, heretic, 533, 542 ^7.; see also under
Monarchianism
Sabinianus, rebellion of, 84
Sabinus, City Prefect, murdered, 77
— L. Mantennius, Prefect of Egypt, 2, 8 n,
— Praetorian Prefect of Maximin, 686, 688
Sacae, 113; culture of, 97
Sacastene, 113
Sacchetti, Palazzo, relief in, 547
sacer^ use of, with regard to the emperor,
361 sq,
Sacerdos, Marius Plotius, grammarian, 600
Saeculum frugifemm, on coins, 416
Saiambo procession at Seville, 427
Sallustius, philosopher, 442, 447
— Macrinus, Seius(?), father-in-law of
Severus Alexander, 63 sq.
Salmas, bas-relief at, 1 10 «.
Salonae, Diocletian retires to, 340; his
palace at, 399, 568, 696; sarcophagus at,
5^5
Saionica, see under Thessalonica
Saloninus, P. Licinius Cornelius, son of
Gallienus, 181, 183, 185
Samaria, see under Sebaste
‘Samian ware* {terra sigillata), in Britain,
290; Gallo-German manufacture of,
241 sq,
Sammonicus Serenus, poet, 589, 613
Samosata, legion at, 127; Macrianus at, 136,
172; Valerian’s headquarters at, 170 sq,
Samso, wife of Proculus, 316
Sandarion, officer of Aureiian, 304 sq.
Sadne, R., in campaign of Septimius
Severus against Albinus, 12 sqq,
Saracens, invade Syria, 328
Sarapis, Egyptian god, at Delos, 448; in
Eastern provinces, 418; in Egypt, 420;
825
in Western provinces, 425 sqq.i, identified
with the Sun, 427; rites of, 426; temples
of, 425, at Rome, 413 sq.^ on coins, 415,
417x9.
Sarcophagi, change of style in reliefs on,
549 ^^-? 553 5^4 -fy-; of Helena, 570
Sarmatae, Sarmatians, 74; lazyges, 139,
150, 18 1 ; defeated by Car us, 321, by
Diocletian, 328; war of Galerius with,
334; art, 100 sq.', culture, 99, 163
Sassan, father of Ardashir I, 109, 120
Sassanid dynasty, 17, 109x99.; empire of,
1135 policy of, 69, 110x99., 138; religion
under, 118x99.; toleration under, 112,
121x9.; classes and titles under, 114 X99.;
and Roman court ceremonial, 387 ; archi-
tecture under, 122 X9.; rock-hewn sculp-
tures of, 123 sq.', coins of, 120 sq.
Saturninus, C. Caelius, career of, 389
— Julius, pretender, 315 and n.', coinage
of, 31572. •
— Proconsu of Africa, 518
Saturnus, 432
Saturus, martyr, 520
Saxa Rubra, engagement at, 682
Saxon Shore, Count of, 334
Saxons, pirates, 327, 334
Scaptopare in Thrace, petition from, 83,
264; fair at, 271
Scilli, martyrs of, 518
scrinia, chancery departments, 389
Scutari (Chrysopolis), victory of Constan-
tine at, 696 X9.; taken by barbarians, 722
scutarii, cavalry, 216
Sebaste (Cilicia), 136
— (Samaria), made a ‘colonia,’ 18
Sebastia, forty martyrs of, 695
Sebastian, St, Acta of, 662
Secular Games, celebrated by Septimius
Severus, 21, 413, by Philip, 91
Secundini of Igel, 249
Seleuceia (Mesopotamia), occupied by
Septimius Severus, 16; rebuilt by
Ardashir I, 117; taken by Carus, 321
— (Cilicia), oracle at, 303
Semnon, chief of the Longiones, 315
Semnones, see under Alemanni
Senate, annuls acts of Commodus, i; pro-
poses son of Pertinax as Caesar, 2 ; ratifies
accession of Julianus, 3; condemns Juli-
anus and recognizes Septimius Severus,
4x9.; under Septimius, 5, 34, 36, 372;
makes Albinus Caesar, 5 ; intrigues with
Albinus, 10 X9. ; recognizes Macrinus, 50,
Elagabalus, 53, Severus Alexander, 57,
Maximinus, 72, 368; Julia Maesa inter-
venes in, 52 ; under Severus Alexander,
58x99., 372; and the Gordians, 76x9.?
368; and Pupienus and Balbinus, 78 X9.,
368; recognizes Philip, 88, Decius, 165,
Gallus, 168, Aemilianus, 168, 368; makes
826
GENERAL INDEX
Gaiiieaus Augustus^ 169; Gallieniis asd, .
x83X<j„, 2 90 if., 223; and Claodiiis, '
if.,- mate Ciiiintilius emperor, 19a if.^-
297, Tacitus, 320 xf.j 36S1 and Anreliaii, ■
299 sq,f 374; recognizes Probus, 3145 and
Probm, 3181 and Carus, 370; makes Con- ,
stantine senior Augustus, 6851 composi-
tion of, tinder Septimius Severus, 25,
375 If., under Elagabalus, 53; and choice
of emperors, 195 iff., 201, 367 iff., 3S4;.
and deification of emperors, 3725 displace-
ment of seiiatfjrs by equestrian oficiali,
2619., 2S3, X97, 308, 326, 376 If.; erects;
statue of Constantine, 1S5; extent of .
authority of, 95, 19619.# 372199., 386#. •
705; and financial matters, 373x9.; as a
municipal coundi# 374; organizes de-
fence against Alemanni, 154# 374; .
rebuilds walls of Rome, 3cx), 374; rnginti-
rd pubika^ C'Urandafp 77 if.; cul-
tural inHiieoce of, 197; and Cbristianitj*#
197; and foreign religions, 412; coinage
of, 373 19., 714 19., suspended, 1S4, 30'7,
718; genius of, on coins, 369
Senasm cmsuiia^ 4, 29, su.rvi?al of, 372
Seneca, Tertullian, and, '592,; Minucius
Felix and, , 596
Senicio, partisan of Ltcinius, 691
Sep timius, pretender, 300
— Severus, P., Emperor, provincial orig'in
of, 24, 612; education of, 6125 cafed
Punic SuEa, 245 prodaimed emperor, 3;
adopted into family of M. Aurelius, 12
and 34 19.5 regards Nerva as ancestor,
13, 3555 visits Africa, 20; civil wars, with
Niger, 6 iff., with Albinos, to 199,; dyn-
astic ambitions of, 370; invasions of
Parthia, 9 19., 16 ly.; and Britain, 36 iff.,
391 ; arranges affairs of Syria, S, 1 1, 391,
of the East, 17 19., of Egypt, iS; poEcy
of# 419., 1519., 19199*? 272; personality
of, 14 199., 588 If.; persecution, of op-
ponents, 1 3 If-, 23# of the Christians, 18,
520; and Emperor-wo«hip,356; associa-
tion with jurists, 22 19.; attitude towards
Italy, 24, towards the Senate, 23, 25 199.,
$S 372 If*? toward® the i 5 ,
220, 376 If., towards the army, 31 199*,
towards the Civi Service, 291^9.; impose
new taxation, 221; reconstitutes Prae-
toriaa Guard, < ; celebrates Secular Gaines,
19, 21, 4131 diw at York, 4x5 Arch of,
at Rome, xo 19, 546 19., 551 19., 367,
at LamiMtesi®, 551, at Leptis Magna, 545,
547 if.j bas^re&f of, 3645 buEds Septi-
Komum, 551; paintin|s of PartMan cam-
paign of, 546; portraits of,. 545; coinage
of, 2 ,4199*? 12 If.? 18, 27, 35 #.5 36,
'38, "40^19., "358, 4164" and debasement of,
coina^ 72 5 ipay of Icgionarjes under, 72 5
Sept»onittiB, building at Rome, 552 '■
Serapioii, Bishop of Antiorb# ordains Paluf
of Edessa, 495# 497# 505
■Serdica, Consui-idne and Licinius meet at,
,, 681 ; Constantine and# 693 19.; iniiit esta-
blished at# 153, 301# 30# 3,2?, 718, closed,
■ ' S^4 \ .
Serenianus, governor of Pontus# persecutes
Chrisiians# 75
Serenus, Septimiiii, poet# 584 199.
Severa, Marcia Otacilia# wife uf Philip, 89,
ft ,
Severan Dynasty, religious policy of# 4x1
Severianus, brother- in -law* of Philip, 89 19,
Severina, wife of Aurellan# 310
Severus, Emperor. I'jecornes Caesar# 343,
343, 669# Augustus# 344, 679; dfiiniiiions
of, 342; and Constantine# 344; and the
Christians# 679; suppresas’ Praetorian
Guard, 345; imprisoned by Maxentius#
345 If.; killed# 346
— Alexander (Gessiiis Bassiaiiiis Alexianus)#
Emperor, 57 iff., 3691 family of# 51, 57;
marriage of, 63; adopted by Elagakdus#
56; proclaimed Augustus, 57; character
of, 571994 liter;iry tastes of, 589; and
the Severan dynasty, 58; murder of, 71;
ffnancial policy of# 64 199- ; legislation of,
■66x9. 1 and the Senate, 5S 19., 364; and
trade, 273 ; and the debasemeal of coinage,
. 7251 and the army, 341 foreign policy of,
68x99., ia6| German campaign of, 71,
154; Persian war, 69x9,, 127199.; tri-
umph of, 71; and the Christians, 67 194
buildings in the xtrign of, 66; niedallion
of, 558; portraits of, 545# 552 if,; coinage
of, 54 and 63, 65,' 69,* 358, 363# 4171
see under Hisiwa /lugusia
Sha*ad, Bishop of Edcssa, 500
SMMnskdkf title of Sassanid kings# icp
SbMUnsMk i Erin^ 1 33
SkMSmkSk I Erdn u JlnirMn^ 133
Shan-si, Roman coins found in# 271 «.
Shapur, excavations at, 120, 125; reliefs at,
m nSf 55 ^ ^9*
Shapur, King of Persis, 109
— I, King of Persia, as barbarian invader,
■■ 1381 attack® Syria# 86 if., 130x99., 170
xf94 takes Hatra, 1 1 1, Amwniia, 1x2,132;
defeats Valerian, 112# 135# 170 199- ; de-
feated at Resaiiia, 87, 131, by Odenathus,
172, 174x9.; makes |>eace with Philip,
1315 religious toleration under, iiaxf.;
death of, 113; tides of, 133; dam at
Shwtar, 118# 137; inscription of, at
Hajiabad, 114; monument of, at Shapur,
1251 votive nnonument of, lao xf,| palaa
atCtesiphon, 122? reliefs of, 123 if., 135#
558 xfi represented on silver cap, 123'
--.fViingofPewk, 114
Sharbil, hieh-priest at Edetsa, martyr#
4f9i9*i/r#of? 504.
GENERAL INDEX
827
Shipka Pass, 144
Shmona, martyr at Edessa, 500
Shostar, dam at, 118, 137
Siberia, treasures found in, 10 1
Sibylline Books, 191 n., 299, 411, 6825
Oracles, used by Lactantius, 650
Sicca Veneria, disorders at, 22 birthplace
of Arnobius, 607
Sicorius Probus, Imperial Secretary, 336
Sidamara coffin, 555
Sien-pi, Tungus Mongol hordes, 105
Silvanus, god, 415 dedications to, at
Rome, 434
— besieged in Cologne by Postumus, 185
—• Bishop of Emesa, martyr, 687
Silversmiths, Arch of the, 548
Sirmium, 74, 79, 184, 317, 692, 694; as
imperial headquarters, 192, 297 sq.
Siscia, mint at, 147, 177, 192, 310, 320, 362
Sisinmus, successor of Mani, 505
Slavery, in Italy, 2375 economic effects of,
25359.
Soaemias, daughter of Julia Maesa, 51 sqq.\
coin of, 4x5
S'e/, Solar worship, growing influence of,
46} theology of, 436 sq* \ flagabalus and,
55x9.; Aurelian’s vision of, 304, establish-
ment of cult of ^ol Inwtus, 193, 3095
emperors and, 257x99.5 invests emperors
with their power, 361 5 pagan inteilec-
tualism and, 613 X9. 5 patron deity of
Constantine, 349, 6805 as god of Justice,
4215 identified with Dionysus, 421;
jwvans at Pyrgi, 432 5 in Neoplatonism,
6365 observance of dies salts, 6945 on
coins, 319 X9., 330, 351, 357 X99., 416 X99.,
716, 719
SoHnus, C. Junius, encyclopaedist, 600
Soloi (Pompeiopolis), 136
Solva in Noricum, centonarii of, 31
soma sSma, in gnosticism, 467 sqq,
Sophene, 336
Soter, Bishop of Rome, 531
Spain, Baetica, 225 Citerior, made separate
province, 44; Tarraconensis, 125 army
in, 12, 445 opposition to Septimius
Severus in, 1 2 ; raided by African tribes,
205 secured by Maximinus, 795 supports
Postumus, 187; decline of agriculture in,
2605 economic condition of, 243 ; religion
in, 433
Spates, Persian officer, 136
speculatores, imperial secret service agents, 43
Stafchr (Istakhr), capital of Persis, 108 sq.,
120
State enterprise and manufacture, 234, 255,
271 sqq,, 278 sq.
Sute-socidism, growth of, 254x99.5 com-
pletion of, 2705 rise of new individualism
against, 2805 and Christianity, 270
Statilius Maximus, grammarian, 577
Statius, 438
Stephen, Bishop of Rome, and the rebaptism
of heretics, 489 x 99 ., 541 x 9,5 martyred,
54 ^
‘Stone Tower,* silk market in Central Asia,
98
Strikes, of workmen, 253, 260 and n., 2675
of monetarii, 267, 300 5 of nasvkularii, z 6 S
Subatianus Aquila, Prefect of Egypt, 22 n,
Successianus, Roman officer, Praetorian
Prefect, 134, 170
Suebi, sacrifice by, to Isis, 426
Suidas, Lexicon of, 712
Sulpicia Dryantilla, wife of Regalianus, 1 84
Sulpicianus, T. Flavius, Prefect of the City,
candidate for Empire, 3
Suipicius Apollinaris, teacher of Gellius,
577, of Pertinax, 588
Susa, near Mont Gen^vre, 681
— (Persia), Hymn to Dionysus at, 421
Symmachus, translator of Old Testament,
484x9.
Syncellus, Georgius, chronological tables
of, 7125 on the Gothic invasions, 721 sq,
Syria, divided into two provinces, ir, 27 ,
3915 Septimius Severus and, 8 , 18 , 24 X 9.5
army in, 3 , 5 , ii, 14 , 52 127 , 3085
attacked by Shapur I, 86 x 9 ., 130 x 99 .,
170 x 99 ., by Narses, 3365 Palmyra and,
179 , 302 X 99 .; religion of, 51 sqq,, 421 ,
427 x 9 ., 614 x 9.5 revolt in, 6665 roads in,
33 taxation units in, 4005 trade in,
243 > with Palmyra, 2785 buildings in,
551
Syriac language, rise of, 4225 used at
Edessa, 4935 Syriac-speaking Christi-
anity, 492 sqq,, 501 5 Jewish translation of
Old Testament into, 4945 Gospels trans-
lated into, 4995 versions of Gospels in, 503
Tabari, chronicle of, 1 09 sq,, 131 n,, 132
Tabula Peutingeriana, 33 «.
Tacitus, Emperor, 3695 chosen by Senate,
3105 death of, 312, 3145 coinage of, 313
— author, 4385 Tertullian and, 593
Tagis, chief augur under Diocletian, 664
Taifali, barbarian tribe, 92, 143
Tanit, see under Dea Caelestis
Tansar, Mazdean official, 1 1 r
Taq-e-Kesra, palace at Ctesiphon, 122
Tarim Basin, 96, 98 sq., 104
Tarraco, plundered by Franks, 159
Tarsus, 136, 689
Tatian, apologist, 466, 6495 identified with
Addai, 493 sqq.', the Diatessaron of, 493
sqq,, 503 5 as heretic, 499
Ta-Ts*m, Chinese name for Roman Em-
pire, 104 sq,, 235
tauroboUum, 407 , 415 , 446 «. 5 nature of,
423 5 at Athens, 41 7, 425 5 at Ilium, 419^*5
at Pergamum, 4195 in fourth century, 447
828 GENERAL INDEX
Taurus Mountain^y 6S9
Telx!ssri, buildiugi aU 551
Tefcmoreian guest-friends, sei under Xenol
Tembris, R., valley of^ Christian Inscrip-
tions frortiy 45Sy 459 and w.y 660
Terme Museum, sarcophagus in, 549
Terminalia, festival of, 666!
Tertullian, ai, 35? life of, 5905 work of,
590 Iff.; style of, 592 If.; historical value
of, 712 ; importance of, 536; character of,
594; of, 515, 537, 591 656;
attacks Caliistus, 537 controversies
with heretics, 536^7*; feeomes Mon-
taiiist,457, 537, 590 ; and military service,
659,663; rm the Trinity, 537; on Chris-
tian worship, 524; and Apuleius, 592, and
Cicero, 591, and Juvenai, 593, and
Seneca, 592, and Tacitus, 593; Eusebius
and, 644
Teft<ment of our Xsn/, 76
Tetricus 1, Gallic Emjx^ror, 157, tSS, 3C‘i;
becomes ‘corrector Lucaniaed 306; coins
of, 306 and ?!., 720
— II, son of I, 306; coins of, 306 «.
‘Teufelsniaiierd 4S
Theadelphia in Egypt, documents from, 26S
Theocritus, freedman of Caracalla, 49
Theodora, wife of Constantins, 328
Theododon, translator of Oid Testament,
484 sq.
Theodotiis, Aurelius, general of GaMknm,
174
Theodulus, official martyr, 666 «.
Theophilus, Bishop of Aatioch, apologist,
467, 477
Theotecnus, curator of Antioch, 687 ■
Therapeutae, 444
Thessrtloiiica, 417, 69519.; attacked by
Goths, 147, f 49, 732 ; Arch of Galerius at,
arS, 566
‘Thirty Tyrants/ of the Misima Augustus
716
Thmm^ Jets of Hymn of the Saul con-
tained in, 498
Thrace, 6; ravaged by barbarians, 90, 145,
147, 149, 167, 721 ; barbarians settled in,
139, 316; economic progress of, 240; 'ae-
ligion in, 432 sq,
Thysdrus (El Djem), 76; amphitheatre at,
<61
Tiber, R., banks of, repaired by Aurelian,
308 j nameniam or, 308 ; Ma»eatius
drowned in, 683
Tiberius, coinage of, 715
Ticinum, Juthungi defeated at, 156, 2995
mint at, 310, 31919,
T*ien-Shan, northern slopes of, 96
Tigris, R., 8 sq.*y provinces formed beyond,
Timesiklea, Timesocles, see under .Titat-
sitheus
■ Ttettitheus, C. Fiiriiw Sabinus Aqiiila,
Praetorian F^refert, 377; father-in-
law of Gordian III, R5; ntlleci Misiiheiis,
S5; career ar.ci character of, S517.; in
Persian war, 8617., 131; death of, 87
Tmurtium, in under Toiirnus
Tifidates, made King fd‘ Armenia by
Macrinus, 50; and Persia, iii 177., 132,
1%
— in* King of Arr.jciiia, eMabiished by
Diocletian, 328; at variance with Xarscts,
31^
Tiia, painters 99
Titianus, Julius, aiiilirua 57*^, 5>]9
Titus, Empercir, Areli of, 546, 552
Castricius, master of 57”
'Focharish, 97
IVderation, RiTgpous, 112* 121 ly., 654 jy.,
689x77.; see aho under Christianity
Tomi, attacked by !)arharians, 149
T\>pa, Turk or \longc)I Iriks, i'c6
Too Ku, Chinese general, 104
Tournus, battle near, 1 3 if.
Trade, between China and Iran, 11717.;
between China and the Empire, 247 and
a, I between East and West, 1171 com-
petition in, 24617.; dYeri id barbarian
invasions on, 261 if., 277; internal trade
of provinces, 244x97.; internationa!
»de,247iff., 336; interprovinciai trade,
24S If 4 as inotivc for expansion,
234; revival of, in fourth century, 379;
trade routes, 271, 379, *Silk* rmite, 97 if.,
104; see aiso under Caravan trade
Traders, iiationalitt* of, 246/7,; activities
of, 247 xf 4 associations of, 31, 3 48, 251,
278 fin
Trajan, Emperor, 4, 9, 24, 233 if., 256 ly,
a59, 261; rescript to Pliny about riw
Christians, 516x7.; clebas«*s coinage, 724;
Traianeia, festival at Pergamuin, 419;
Arch of, at Beneventunii 546x7.1 Baths of,
5521 Cedumn of, 210, 546; Forum of.
•568; eoifiage of, 716
Transjordan ia, 333, 236; economic cleveiop-
ment of,, 240
Transylvania, barbarian invasions of, 140,
. 143; garrison of, 151; strategic ptMitioa
of, 150
Trapezm, captured by Borani, 148, 170
tremiri aM,aff^ 715
Treveri, see under Treves
Tr6?es, 12, 244 245, 6S0; Postnmus and,
188, 191 ; grave monunicnts of, 5565
baths at, 568; basilica at, 568x9.; mint
■at, 188,^214, 330; Mithraea at, 420
iribum iaikisnd^ 25, 378
Tripoli, 20
Tripalis in Phoenicia, mint estabiisted at,
, ^311,320
Triton, on denarii of Septintius Severiis, 40
GENERAL INDEX
829
Trypho, Dialogue of Justin with, 464 sq.
Turfanese, language, 97
Turin, battle near, 6825 surrenders to Con-
stantine, 682
Turkestan, Chinese, 97, 104; Manichaean
documents discovered in, 504
Turko-Mongol culture, 99; peoples, 99 sq,y
103 sq. ^ ^
Tusculum, Dionysiac association at, 436
Tyana, 134, 312; siege of, by Aureiian,
,■.302^'
Tyche, 421; of Constantinople, 697
Tyras, 142
Tyre, 8j becomes a colony, 17J trade con-
nection with China, 247 n.
Tzirallum, post station, 688
Uipian, jurist, Praetorian Prefect, 23, 589;
praefsctus annonae, 62; murdered, 63 sq.)
on Christianity, 67, 5175 on the ‘Con-
stitutio Antoniniana,’ 455 on position of
the emperor, 68, 353, on power of, 295
on the Praetorian Prefecture, 61; on the
provinces, 66 sq.
Ulpius Crinitus, supposed adoption of
Aureiian by, 298; letter of Aureiian to,
300^
Umbria, 168
Ural Mountains, discoveries near, loi
Uranius Antoninus (i), usurper, 70; coin-
age of, 70, 718
(ii), Julius Aurelius Sulpicius,
usurper, 92 ^7.; resists Persians, 133, 170;
coinage of, 133
Urban, Bishop of Kome, 534
Urbanus, pretender, 300
Vabailathus Athenodorus, son of Zenobia,
176x77., 718, 724; coinage of, 179, 301
^ac antes, and military service, 396
and military service, 396
Vahram I, King of Persia, 113; puts Mani
to death, 113, 504, 5135 relief of, 123; on
silver cup, 125
— II, King of Persia, war of, with Rome,
113, 321 X7.J Probus and, 3165 surrenders
Mesopotamia, 3285 reliefs of, 124
— in, King of Persia, 113, 335
Vahram, fires of, 121
Valens, becomes Augustus, 692
Valentia, inscription at, 316
Valentinus, gnostic, system of, 469 X77.;
and church at Rome, 532
Valeria, wife of Galerius, 328, 674
Valerian (P. Licinius Vaierianus), Emperor,
directs administration for Hostilian, 166;
proclaimed emperor, 1695 family and
character of, 2295 fails to check bar-
barians, 148; campaign against Persia,
133 ^705 captured, 135 sqq., 171 sq..
i%2 sq,, persecutes Christians, 171,
182, 205 sq., 522; Christian view of, 137,
223, 658} pagan view of, 2235 reliefs com -
memorating capture of, 112, 133, 559;
coinage of, 134 sq., 148, 172, 358, 717
Valerian, brother of Gallienus, 190
Vaierianus, P, Licinius Cornelius, son of
Gallienus, 181
Vandals, Asdingian, relations with the Em-
pire, 92, 139, 143, 299; defeated by
Probus, 315
Varius Avitus, see under Eiagabalus
— Marcellus, father of Eiagabalus, 5 1
‘Vayism,' Mazdean sect, 118
Venus, temple of Venus and Roma at Rome,
413, 569; caelestis, on coin, n.^ and
tauroholium, 424
Verona, battles near, 94, 166, 323; colonia
Gallienana, 213 j taken by Constantine,
6825 laterculus Veronensis, 392
Verus, Lucius, 511, 588
Vespasian, Emperor, lex de imperia Ves^
pasiani, 352; coinage of, 369, 413, 415
Vesta, 414, temple of, at Rome, 551
Vetera (Xanten), legion at, 191; dedications
to Oriental deities at, 434
•vexillationes, divisions of the mobile army,
213 sq., 3955 of the cavalry, 217, 398
Viae, see under Roads
<vicarii rationales, 390
^icarius, a consiliis sacris, 389; in urbe
Roma, 3945 Italiae, 394; praefectorum
praetorio, 380, 393 j praefecturae urbis,
3935 summae ret rationum, 390
Victor, Bishop of Capua, and the Dia-
tessaron, 494 sq.
— Bishop of Rome, 531; and the Quarto-
deciman controversy, 488, 532; attempts
to excommunicate churches of Asia Minor,
532
— Arrius, epistrategos of Lower Egypt, 18
— P. Sallustius Sempronius, admiri, 69
Victoria (Vitruvia), mother of Victorinus,
306
Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau, martyr, 6075
commentary on the Apocalypse, 607
— M. Piavonius, successor to Postumus,
188 and n., 192, 3065 coinage of, 188,
214, 306, 359, 717
— officer of Probus, 317
Vicus Britannicus (Bretzenheim), Severus
Alexander killed at, 71
Vienne, persecution of the Christians at,
518 sq.
Viminacium, legion at, 195 coins minted at,
85, 147, 1515 mint transferred to Cologne,
158«., 182
Vindelicia, 157, 30S
Vindobona, legion at, 4 n.
Vindonissa, refortified by Gallienus, 155
Vitalianus, Praetorian Prefect, 77
830 GENERAL INDEX
Viteiliusj Emperor, roinage of, 369
Viticiilturcy 24c> 317; or tfe
and in the Wcticrati, 23.51 dii
various provirices, 240^ Aurelkn and,
271 ; Probtts and, 271,317
Vitruvia, w«^/fr Vktom
Vocontiws, poet, 581
¥oiogases IV of Parthia, attitude to Romei ■
9; war with Septimius Severus, i6
-* V of Paxthia, 48 sq*
Volusianus, son of Gallus, becomes Caesar
and Augustus, 1671 murdered, t68
— L. Petronius Taurus, Praetorian Prefect,
consul, 183
Vorodes, Septimius, miiitarv governor of
Palmyra, 177
Vukovar, Vulka, R-, 691
Wailcliirn, de^iiimi settled at, 212
Wu-ti, Han monarch, initiates imi.% '104
Xeaoi Tekmoreioi, brotherhood, 422, ■6.S7
Xiphilinus, Johaimes* epitomizer of Cassius ■
Dio, 710, 712
Xystus, Bishop of Rome, martyr, 206,
522
Yazdgard III, last Sassanici .king., its ■
Yejaiaei, 'R., dismverks near,, loi
Yotkan (Xliotan), seals at, 9S
Yileh-cMh :{lnda«Scytlikm), toy.
2iabdais, Paiinyrene general, occiipks Egypt,
1805 defeated try Aurdiaiu 303
Zabdiexme, 33b
Zailha, Gordian 10 murdered at, £7*
ceiiOtaph at, S7 /y,
Zarathustra, under Zoroaster
Zenobia, Quaeii of Palmyra, relations of,
With Rome, i77 attacks
Alexandria, 620 j controls Egypt, 152,
301 spi capture of, 304 ry.; character of,
3025 pardoned, 3371 and Longinus, 302,
6x9s and Paul of Sarnosata, 178 rn, 493;
representation of, on a lead seal, 7241
coinage of, 301
Zenaphiius, Roman governor c*f Africa,
676 .
Zepbyrinus, Bishop of Rome, 533
Zervati, *Zervajn’sm/ 119 xf., 430
Zeus, see eiisQ under Juppiter; Dolichtuius,
407, 423 432 dedicaticins to, in
Western provinces, 42 7 ; Kasios, 427;
Kerauoios, 4341 of Panainara, 420; on
seal from Central Asia, 99
Zoaaras, Johannes, Efitmie of Hisit^nes of,
7.12
Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism, 69, 1 1 1, u8 ryf.;
in Mani*s system, 508, 637
Zosimus, on Ilecius, 2225 Histma Nmm of,
71.1.5 on the Gothic invasions, 721
Ziigin.amel in the Taunus, Chattl settled at,
INDEX OF MAPS
Maps have each their own index, and reference is here made only to the number of the
map. The alphabetical arrangement ignores the usual prefixes (lake, etc.)
I. Asia Minor, Armenia
and
Facing
page
Syria
2. The Roman Empire:
the
1
Western provinces
.
II
3. Roman Africa
.
19
4. Roman Britain
5. Roman Britain: the frontier
37
country
•
42
Facing
page
6. The Roman Empire: the
Eastern provinces . . 85
7. The Ancient Far East . . 97
8. The Sassanian Empire . . 109
9. Decius and the Goths . , 164
lo. The Empire under Diocletian 408
Abonuteichos, i
Abrittus, 6, 9
Achaia, 10
Adiabene, i, 8
Ad Maiores, 3
Adige, R., 2
Adramyttium, i
Adrianopie, 6
Aegean Sea, 6, 9
Aegissus, 6
Aegyptus Herculia, 10
Aegyptus lovia, 10
Aelana, 8
Aemilia et Liguria, 10
Africa, 3
Aire, R., 4
Aire Gap, 4
Aisne, i?., 2
Alabanda, i
Alani, 8
Aibani, i, 8
Albingaunum, 2
Aidborough, 4
Alexandria Troas, i
Allan Water, 5
Alpes Cottiae, 10
Alpes Graiae et Poeninae,
. -XO,"".:
Alpes Maritimae, 10
Altai MtSy 7
Aluta, R., 6, 9
Amanus Mt^ i
Amasia, i
Amastris, i
Ambleda, 1
Amida, 8
Amisus, I
Ammaedara, 3
Amnias, i 2 ., i
Anartii, 6
Anazarbus, x
Anchialus, 6, 9
Ancyra, i
Anti-Lebanon, i
Antioch, 8
Aosta, 2
Apamea, i
Apavarktikene, 8
Aphaca, I
Aphrodisias, i
Apoilonia, i
Apulia et Calabria, 10
Apulum, 6
Aquileia, 2, 6
Aquincum, 2, 6
Aquitania, 2
Aquitanica I et II, 10
Arabia, 10
Arabian Sea, 8
Arabissus, i
Aracha, i
Aral Sea, 7
Araxes, E., 8
Arbela, 8
Archelais, i
Ardoch, 4, 5
Arethusa, i
Argaeus Mfy i
Aria, 8
Arius, R.i 8
Armenia, i, 8
Armenia Minor, i, 10
Arras, 2
Arsanene, i
Artaxata, 8
Asia, 10
Aspendus, i
Assur, 8
Astauene, 8
Atlas Mtf 3
Atropatene, 8
Attabia, i
Augsburg, 2, 6
Augst, 2
Aurasius (Aurfes) Mtp 3
Ausum (Sadouri), 3
Auzia, 3
Aventicum, 2
Avon, R., 4
Azerbaijan, 8
Babylon, 8
Babylonia, 8
Bactria, 8
Baden-Baden, 2
Baetica, 3, 10
Baetocaece, i
Bahrein, 8
Baikal, Z., 7
Baleares, 10
Balkash, L., 7
Balkh, 8
Bambyce, x
Bamiyan, 8
Banjaluka, 2, 6
Bargylus M/, i
Barkol, Z,., 7
Basle, 2
Batavi, 2
Bath, 4
Batna Mts, 3
Batnae, 8
Bavares, 3
Beckfoot, 5
Belgica, 2
Belgica I, 10
Belgica II, 10
Beilovaci, 2
Berlin, 2
Bernard Pass, Great St, 2
Bernard Pass, Little St, 2
Beroe, 6
Beroea (Syria), i
INDEX OF MAPS
832
•Thr.iu'..
lk\kKi M: , \Vt-.^errN
fkfwca^tle. jj
Bibji; Mv. j
Biri|,v!i, :i
BirreRs» ^
Biskfi’u :»
Bir.hyni.1^ 1, id
B ithyiiJuiu 1
Bittenie? 4
Black &as i?, 6, S
Biakcho|x*, $
Bdliincrwaki, 6
Bokhara^ 8
Boniij z
Boiionia^ 6
Bosna, R,^ 2, 6
Bosnia, 2, 6
Bosporus, I, 6
Bostra, 8
Boulogne, z
Bowes, 4
Boiwness, 4.
Brampton, 4
Brasso, 6
Brecon, 4
■BreiiBer, 2, 6
Brigantes, 4 •
Brigetio, 2, 6 .
Britannia I et II, 10
Brixia, 2
Bructeri, 2
Buila Regia, 3
Biirguadi, 2
■ Bori, 2, ,6 .
Burnswark, 5
Bnrnum, 2, 6
Bybius, I
Byzantium, i, 6, 9
Cabul, 8
Cabtii, R., S
Cabyie, 9
Cadyanda, i
Caenophnirium, 1, 6
Caerleon, 4
Caerews, 4
Caerweat, 4
Caesarea (lol), 3
Caesarea (Mazaca), i
Caesariensis, 3
Calycadnus, R., i
Cambridge, 4
Camelon, 4, 5
Campania et Samnium,
10
Caimiaefates, z
Cappadocia, i, S, 10
Cappuck, 5
Cap$a, 3
Caraiis, L.^ i ■ ■
C'ATthmmu i
Caris, i, k.
Carlisle, 5
Carlisle, Old, 5
Carman ia, 8
Carnanton, 4
Carnarvon, 4
Carnbla, Zt f> ,
Carnuntum, a,' fS
Carpathians Mis^ ■
Carrbae, 1, 8
Carthage, 3
Carthaginkni'sis, 10-.
Carun, 'R,^ 8
Car'voran, 5
Caspian Gates, S' ■ '
Caspian Sea, i, "7, 8
Cassandreia, 6 .
Casscl, 2
Castdl'um lliigensiuoi, 3
Ctistledykes, 5
Castle Greg, 5
Castor, 4
Cataonia,!.
Catuveilauni, 4
Caucasus 3 /r, t
Cekia, 2, 6
Cevenaes Mis, z
Cbabaras, R,-, r> 8
Chalcedcm, .
Chaids, I;
ChMons, 2
Chtinoeikirk, 5
Characene, S
Chatti, 2 ■
Chauci, z
CMdif, R., 3
Chenisci, 2 '
Chester, 4 . '
Chesterholm, 5 -
Gheviots,'.4 ■
Chew- Green, 4, ,5 ■ ■ ■ :
Chichester, 4
Cfe-iMI, 7 '. -.
Chihli, Gulf of, 7 ■ :
Choarene, S
Chorasmia, 8
ChrysopoUs, 6
Cibabe (Vinkovce), a, 6
Cibyratis, x
Cilicia,' 10
Cilicia Aspera, i
Cilicia Campestris, i
Cilkian Gates, i
Cirencester, 4
Cirta, 3
Cius, i ^ ■
Claros, 'I
Cleghom, 5
Clyde, R,, 4, 5
Clyae Ihirn, ^
Cobk'iiCt. :
C^iele-Syria, r
Colchester, 2
Co If hi, I
CbIogiii% 2
Coirhima JClipfVid'jrC'i”. i
CauKirna (Jh'ddi.i;, 1
Corn sna, i
CaoinntgciKo i
Caiinmt, 2
Corbrid^tn ,..u t
Cfj re.it 7
Coreina, 1 3
Casio bur i. a
Cud nit 2,
Crainond, ;
Crci limit 1
Crvta, to
Croaiii, 2, i't
Ctcsiphnn, it 8
Cuicuh 3 -
Cyprust 1,8, fo
Cyrrhus, i
Cyrus, Ah, 8
CyzifuSt I* h
Dacia, 6, 10-
Dahae, '8
Daikiiiiies, 8
Dalginross, 4, 5
Dalmatia, 2, 6, kd
D amascus, lii
Danukn iC, fk 9
Darahjml, 8
fJarclania, Ck 1
Darguci, i
Daria! Pass, i, K
Dee, III., 4
Demavend, 8
Derkmd Fans, i, 8
Derwtmf, 5
Diiiaric Alps, f>
Diaece«, for lisu see indt
10 Map 10
Dioscurias, 1
Dlospontus, 10
Dniqx*r, R,^(>
Dniester, R.^ 6
Doiaucothy, 4
Dolichc, I
Doiiauwclrth, 2, 6
Doiibs, 2
l)oura«Europiis> 1, t
Dover, 4
Drang iane, K
Drave, I., 2, 6
Drill, It, 6
Ducen, 3 ■
Durostoruiii, 6, 9
Durotriges, 4
Dzungaria, 7
Ebchester, 5
Ecbatana, 8
Eden, i?,, 4, 5
Edessa, i, 8
Eger, 2, 6
Ekaterinburg, 7
El'Aouja, 3"' '■
Ei Geb^a, 3
Elbe, ^i^.,: 2r 6 ,
Elegeia, I
Elymais, 8
Emesa, I
Emona, 2, 6
Ems, R., z
Epbesus, I
Epirus nova, 10
Epirus vetus, 10
Esk, R., 5
Eulaeus, 8
Eumeneia, i
Euphrates, i 2 „ i, 8
Europa, 10
Exeter, 4
Faustinopoiis, i
Ferghana, 7
Fez, 3
Fife, 4, s
Firuzabad, 8
Flaminia et Picenum,
Flavia Caesariensis, 10
Forat, 8
Forest of Dean, 4
Forth, R.-, 4, 5
Forth, Firth of, 5
Four Laws, 3
Frankfort, 2
Frisii, 2
Fulda, R,, 2
Gabae, 8
Gabiene, 8
Galatia, i, 10
Gailaecia, 10
GaUia, 2
Gallia Narbonensis, 2
Gangra, i
Ganjak, 8
Garamantes, 3
Garda, L., z
Garonne, i^., 2
Gelae, 8
Geiduba, 2
Gellygaer, 4
Gemellae, 3
Gen^vre, Mt, 2
Genoa, 2
Gerasa, 8
INDEX OF MAPS
Germania I, 10
Germania 11, 10
Germaniceia, i
Germe, r
Gerrha, 8
Gesoriacum, 2
Geukche, L., i
Geuljik, £.,1
Gilnockie, 5
Gloucester, 4
Gobi Desert, 7
Gordyene, 8
Goths, 2
Gran, R,, 2, 6
Graz, 2, 6
Hadrianopolis, 9
Hadrumetum, 3
Haemimontus, 10
Haemus Range, 9
Halle, 2
Haitern, 2
Halys, R,, 1
Hamburg, 2
Hamun, X., 8
Harmozica, i
Harz Mts, 2
Hatra, 8
Hebrus, R., 6, 9
Hecatompylus, 8
Heddernheim, 2
Heidelberg, 2
10 Heliopolis, i
Heimund, R., 8
Helvetii, 2
Heraclea Pontica, I, 6
Herat, 8
Hermunduri, 2
Hieropolis (Castabala), i
High Rochester, 5
Hindu Kush, 7
Hippo Regius, 3
Hit, 8
Hochst, 2
Hodna Mts, 3
Huang-ho, R., 7
Hiifingen, 2
Humtir, R., 4
Hyrcania, 8
latrus, R., 9
Iberi, i, 8
Iconium, x
Icosium, 3
Ilium, I
Ilkley, 4
Illyria, 2, 6
Inchtuthili, 4, 5
Indus, R., 7, 8
Inn, R., 2, 6
Innsbruck, 2, ^
Insulae, 10
Interamna, 2
Intilene (Ingilene), i
Inveresk, 4, 5
Ionia, I
Iris, R., I
Irthing, R., 5
Irtysh, R., 7
Isauria, i, 10
Isla, R., 4, 5
Isle of Wight, 4
Isonzo, R., 2
Issyk Kul, 7
Istros, 6
Italy, 2, 6
Jarrow, 5
Jaxartes, R., 7
Julian Alps, 2, 6
Juliopolis, I
Jura Mts, 2
Kabylia, 3
Kama, R., 7
Kan-su, 7
Karansebes, 6
Karashahr, 7
Kashgar, 7
Kashmir, 7
Kerman, 8
Kermanshah, 8
Khorassan, 8
Khotan, 7
Kincardine, 4
Kinross, 4, 5
Knapton, 4
Knin, 2, 6
Kucha, 7
Kurdistan, 8
Kushans, 8
Lahn, R., 2
Lambaesis, 3
Lanchester, 5
Langobardi, 2
Laodicea (Lydia), r
Laodicea (Syria), i
Laodicea Combusta,
Laranda, i
Larissa, i
Lauriacum, 2, 6
Lebanon, i
X^ech, R*, 2
Leicester, 4
Leipzig, 2
X<ek, R*, ''2 , .
Leptis, 3
Leptis Magna, 3
Lesbos, I
Leuke Kome, 8
INDEX OF MAPS
Xhames, ^
Xliamtigadi^
-R-f * ’
Xheoais, lO
7'heis$,
XheleptCs s
Xlie$salia,^i» , i
Xbcssalcjnie#-^^. ,,
Thrace, 6
Thracia, iCi ^
Thuburbo
Thugga, s
Thiirii3gem"^'
Thyatira, t
Thysdrm(F* ^
Ticinium,
Tien~Shaii, ^ ,
Tigris,
Tingis, 3
Tingitana, j* '•
Tiiaoi, X
Tokhari, E
Tomi, 6
Torwood
Totimias, %
.TraUfes,!
TransylYaiii^f
Transylfaniar,
Trapezms, 4
Trent, 4
Tres
Treveri, a
Tr&ves, t
Triboci, 3.
Tridental i.'
Trieste, 2,
Metz, 2
Mease, ^.,2
Milan, 2 ■ ■
Miletus, I. ■
}v-!inden, 2
Minusinsk, 7 ■ '
Mi, ran, 7 .
M,istliias 1
Moesia, 6
Moesia inferior, ic
Moesia superior Margensis,
m
Mogontiacum, iVlainz, 2
,Mona, 4 ■ ■
Mongolia, 7
Ivlons Alma, 6
Mopsuesda, i
Morava (Margus), R,f 6
Moray 4
Morini, 2
.Moselle, R., 2-
Msad, 3
IVIursa, 2, 6 .
Mysia, i
Nalssus (Mish), 6
Mapoca, 6
Karbonensis, 10 ■
„ . Neapolis (Africa), 3
Nemetes, 2
..Nene, R.f 4 ■/■■■.■.■■.■■
Neocaesarea, i, 6
Nervii, 2
' Nestus, i?., .6
Hetherby, 5
Neuss, 2
New Isaura, i .
■ Newbrough, . 5
; Newcastle, 4- ■■ ■ . ■
■.'. New Forest,. 4. . . '
' :■ Newstead, 4, 5- ■
. Nicaea, r,-.6 ■■■
.'.Nkomedia,i,6-''
„ : ,Nicopo.Iis (Cilicia), I,
Nicopoiis (Moesia), 6, 9
Nicretes, 2
Nihawand, 8
Nimrud Bagh, i
Nineveh, S
Nippur, S
Nish (Nalssus), 6
Nishapur, 8
Nisibis, I, 8
Niya, R,, 7
. Noricum, 2, 6
Noricum mediterraneum,'
Morlcum ripenae, to
North Tyw, H#, 5
Novae, 6, 9
Kovenipopiilaiia, a, to
Xoviridiinurn, 9
Nmiiidia, 3
Xuniidia Cirtensis, 10
Nureml’wriT, 2, 6
Xyrnwegen, a
ObcKiden, 2
Ochil fi ill’s, 4, 5
Odessii's, 9
0<*a, 3
Oenoaiida, i
Oescus, 6. i)
Oescu?., R.^ 9
Olba, i
Olbasa, i
Oibia, 6
Old Isaura, i
Opitergiinn, ,2, fl
0.raii., 3 '
Orcio.s, ■ 7
Orkhon, Ab, 7
Ormuz, Strait of, 8
Orontes, A., i
Orsova, 6
Osi (Oinib 2, 6
Osnabriick, 2
Osrhotbie, i, 8
Ostia, 2 ■
Oued Djedi, 3
Oxus, K,, 7, 8
Faiaestina, lO'
Palmyra, i:, 8
Pamir, the, 7
Painphylia, i, ic
Fannonia, 2, 6
Fannonia inferior, to
Pannonia superior, to
Faphkgonia, i, 10
Fappa, I
Parapotamia, i
Paris, 2
Parium, 1
Parlais, i
Parthyene, 8
Pautalia, 6
Pelagonia, 6
Pennymu ir, 5
Peotre, 4
Pergamum, i
Perge, i
Periathu% i, 6, 9
Perm, 7
PcitIi«, I
Pci»polis, 8
Persia, 7
Persian Gulf, 7, 8
Pe»i#, 8
Peshawar, $
Pasiati% If 6 ■ . '
Peterborough, 4
Petra, 8
Phaselis, i
Phazimon, i
Philadelphia, i
Philippopolis, 6, 9
Phoenice, 10 ,
Phraaspa, 8
Phrygia, i, 10
Pisidia, i, 10
Pityus, 6
Pizus, 6
Placentia, 2
Po, ]?., 2
Poetovio, 2, 6
Pompeiopolis, i
Pontus, I, 8
Ponms Polemoniacus, i, 10
Potaissa, 6
Praevaiitana, 10
Prague, 2, 6
Proconsularis Zeugitana, 10
Propontis, i, 6
Prusa, I, 6
Prusias (ad Hypium), i
Punjab, 7
Pyramus, i?., i
Pyrenees M^Sy 2
Quadi, 2
Quetta, 8
Quinquegentanei, 3
Raeburnfoot, 5
Raetia, 2, 10
Raphaneae, i
Rapidum, 3
Ratiaria, 6
Ravenna, 2
Recka (Romula), 6
Red Sea, 8
Red Tower Pass, 6
Rede, R., 5
Regensburg, 2, 6
Resia, 2
Revan M/r, 8
Rhagae (Rai), 8
Rhagiane, 8
Rheine, 2
Rhine, R., 2
Rhodes, 1 ., i
Rhodiapoiis, i
Rhodope, 10
Rh6ne, R., 2
Rhosus, I
Rhyndacus, R., i
Ribbie, R., 4
Richborough, 4
Riff, The, 3
Rigodulum, 2
Risingham, 5
INDEX OF MAPS
Roma, 2, 6
Romula (Recka), 6
Roshan, 7
Rouen (Rotomagus), 2
Roxolani, 6
Ruhr, R., 2
Rusgoniae, 3
Saale, R., 2
Sabrata, 3
Sacae, 8
Sacaraucae, 8
Sacastene, 8
Sadouri (Ausum), 3
Sagalassus, i
Sala, 3
Salassi, 2
Saibacus Mif, i
Saldae, 3
Salonae, 2, 6
Salzburg, 2, 6
Samosata, i, 8
Sangarius, R., i
Sadne, R., 2
Sarajevo, 2, 6
Sarapul, 7
Sardes, i
Sardinia, 10
Sarmizegethusa, 6
Sarus, R., i
Satala, i
Savaria, 6
Save, R., 2, 6
Savensis, 10
Scaptopare, 6
Scarbantia, 2, 6
Scordisci, 6
Scythia, 10
Sebasteia, i
Seine, R., 2
Seistan, 8
Seleuceia (on the Calycad-
nus), I
Seleuceia (in Pieria), i
Seleuceia (Susa), 8
Seige, I
Semnones, 2
Sequani, 2
Sequania, 10
Serdica, 6
Sereth, R., 6
Severn, R., 4
Shadrinsk, 7
Shan-si, 7
Shan-tung, 7
Shapur, 8
Shen-si, 7
Shipka Pass, 6
Shoshtar, 8
Shott-el“Djerid, 3
Shott-el"Hodna, 3
Shott-esh"Sherqui, 3
Shott Melghir, 3
Siagu, 3
Si-an-fu, 7
Sicca Veneria, 3
Sicilia, 10
Side (Pamphylia), i
Side (Pontus), i
Sieg, R., 2
Siga, 3
Siichester, 4
Silures, 4
Simitthu, 3
Singara, 8
Singidunum, 6
Sinj, 2, 6
Sinope, i
Sippar, 8
Sirmium, 6
Siscia, 2, 6
Sitifi, 3
Sittace, 8
Smyrna, i
Sogdiana, 7, 8
Soioi (Pompeiopolis),
Solway Firth, 4, ^
Sophene, i, 8
South Shields, 5
South Tyne, R., 5
Spasinu Charax, 8
Stainmore Gap, 4
Stakhr (Istakhr), 8
Strageath, 4, 5
Strymon, R., 9
Su-chou, 7
Suebi, 2
Sultan Dagh, i
Sura, I, 8
Susa, 2
Susa (Seleuceia), 8
Syedra, i
Synnada, i
Syria, 8
Syrian Desert, 8
Tabriz, 8
Tacape, 3
T’ai-yiian, 7
Tarbagatai Mfs, 7
Tarim, R., 7
Tarraconensis, 10
Tarsus, i
Tatra Mfs, 2, 6
Taunus Mts, 2
Taurus Mfs, i
Tavium, i
Tay, R., 4? 5
Tebessa (Theveste), 3
Tejend, R,, 8
Tencteri, 2
Thabudis, 3
53 "
INDEX OF MAPS
836
ThameSj 4
Timmugadiy 3
Tliapsusj 3
Thaya, R.y 2. 6
Thebaisj 10
Theiss, It, 6
Tlieieptfi, 3
Thessalia, 10
Tbessalonica, 6, 9
Theveste (Tebesaa), 3
Thrace, 6
Thracia, 10
Thuburbo Mains, 3
Thtjgga, 3
Tharingerwaid, 2
Thyatira, i
Thysdriis (El Djem), 3
Tidnum, z
Tlen-Shaii, 7
Tigris, It, I, 8
Tmgis, 3
Tingitana, 3, 10
Tinm, i
Tokhari, 8
Tomi, 6
Tor wood Moor, 5
Toarnss, a
Trailes, i
Traosykania, 6
Tramykaniaa Alps, ^
Trapezes, 6' , ■
■■■Treat, I.,' 4
■ Ties, Tafcrii^ae, t . .
, TitTeri, 2; ^ ■■' ■
Treves, 2
Tnfcwcl, 'Z' \ ,,
'',;Tndeiitetii^ 42 ' ■'■/■
'VTrieste,:5ip,'6" ■
Tripoli, 3
Tripolls, 1 .
Tripoiitaaa, to . ..
Trcsesmisj J ■ ■
Trogitls, Lt, I
Troy, 6
Tabesecta, 3
Tungri, 2
Taa-heaag, 7. ■
Terao, 8
Turfaa, 7 . .
T osda ei U aibria, 10 . ■
Tweed, It, 4, 5 '
Tyaaa, t
Tyne, It, 4? S
T)Tas, 6
Uaa, It, 3, 6
Ural MiSf 7 ■ '
Urmia, i, 8
Utica, 3
Valeria, i-o
Valeria Byzaceaa, 10
Van, I, 8
Vandals, 2
Vasgiones, z-
Vardar, 1 ., 6 .
Venasa, t
Veaetia et Histria, :-tO' ■, ■
, Vemlamintn,- 4
■Vetera, .■ '■■
Vienna (Vienne),- 3 ■ .
Vienna (Vindobona), 2, 6
Viennensis, 1.0'
Viininaciuin, S
Vindelicia, z
Vindobona (Vienna), -a' ■
Vindonissa, 2
Vistula, It, 6
Volga, It, 7
Voiogasia, 8
Volubilis, 3
Vosges ilf/i, 2
Vrbas, I., 2, 6
Wasig, It, 3, 6
Waal, I., z
Wall, Antoaine, for names
of forts see index to Map
5 ■ , ■
Widi, Hadrian ic, for names
of forts iA? index to Map
Wailserid, 4
Wading Street, 4
Weald, 4
Werra, I., 2
Weser, I., 2
Whitley Castle, 5
Wiesbaden, z
Winchester, 4
Wroxeter, 4
Yarkand, 7
Yellow &a, 7
Yenisei, I., 7
York, 4', , ,
G.«ater,^"S'':
Zab, I., Lesser, S .
'Zabdiceae', i
Zarai, 3
Zela, I,
.Zeugma,, i| S'', ■■■:,,.:„
ZEis, 3
}
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
(Texts p. 837 j inscriptions p. 8475 papyri p. 848. References to pages
include the notes at the foot of the page)
Aurelius Victor
XXXIV, 3~7 191
XXXV 306
XXXV, I 299
XXXV, 6 300
XXXV, 7 309
XXXV, 9 sqq* 368
XXXVI, I 312
XXXVI, 2 312
xxxvn, 3 271
xxxvii, 5 370
XXXVII, 5^-97. 318
XXXVII, 6 3 ii >378
XXXVIII 322
XXXVIII, 6 322
XXXIX, 2>~4 387
XXXIX, 8 325
XXXIX, 10 323
XXXIX, II 323
XXXIX, 14 ^77. 327
XXXIX, 16 ^77. 327
XXXIX, 19^77. 331
XXXIX, 24 4 ?. 328
XXXIX, 26^77. 328
XXXIX, 32 402
XXXIX, 36 384
XXXIX, 39 >f 77 . 331
XXXIX, 40-41 332
XXXIX, 43 334
XXXIX, 44.17. 390
XXXIX, 45 405
XL, 9 177. 334
[Aurelius Victor]
]Epitome TSXi, 1 199
XXXIV, 2
156, 190, 365
XXXIV, 3 i 38
XXXIV, 3-4 191
XXXV 299, 306 ^7.
XXXV, 3' ,300':
XXXV, 5 3 ^^
'XXXVI^: ''■'3IO, ;3I2:’lf.: ''
Agathangelus
i
Ps.-Aristides
1, 9 (F.H.G. v, 2,p. 115a) ' 126
UK, 257 sq.
3^3
11, 12 (F.H.G. V, 2, p. 1 1 8a)
XXXV K, 30
262
131
XXXV K, 37
234
Ammianus Marceliinus
Arrian
XV, 5, 18
387
Tact. 4, 3
210
XVII, 5, 3
357
4^4
210
XXI, 16, 9
225
33? 2
210
XXI, 16, 10
225
35, 2 sq.
218
XXII, 16, 17
620
44,1
210
XXIII, 5, 3 136,225
xxiii, 6, 14
II6
Auius Gellius
XXVIII, 4, 14
599
N.A. I, 10
579
XXX, 8, 8
225
h 23
578
XXXI, 5, 16 qzisq.
II, 24, 8
578
XXXI, 5, 17
152
II, 26
575
Artec dota (Cramer)
VI (VII), 7
IX, 10
584
584
n, p. 289
228
XI, 7 , I
579
Anonymus Valesii
XII, 2
XIII, 17 (16)
579
578
i^sqq.
691
XVII, 21
578
17
692
XIX, 9
578
AntL Lat (Riese)
XX, I, 13
578
XX, 8
584
I, 199
I, 711
605
605
Aurelius Victor
I, 883-4
605
Caes. XIII, 3
233
Apuieius
XX, 19
20
XXI, 2
48
ApoL 18
583
XXIII, I
51
20
583
XXV, 2
368
'"43
582
XXVIII, I
91
49
582
XXIX, I
198
64
582
XXIX, 2
144, 166
66
583
XXIX, 3
167
de dogm. Plat, ii, 8
580
XXX, 2
168, 228
Flor. 9 580,
583
XXXI, 3 168,
195, 368
'20'
580
XXXII, I
154
Met. I, I
583
XXXIII, 2
184
IX, 42
583
XXXIII, 3
157
435
xxxin, 5
22S
XI, 15
435
xxxiir, 9-12
x88
XI, 29
583
xxxni, 14
306
Aristides, Aelius
xxxiii, 17
156
xxxiir, 2r
190
(K=Keil)
XXXIII, 27
236
XXXIII, 28
190, 365
XXVI K, 100
234
XXXIII, 29
225
XXXVI K, 91 240, 249
XXXIII, 34
377
XLVK, 33 sq.
236
xxxin, 35
183
XXXVII, 2
XXXVII, 4
xxxvm
XXXVIII, 7
XLI, 5
XLI, 14
Ausonius
"^pigr. 48 sq.
316
318
322 sq,
691
388
438
53-3
83 SJ
ATitusj AMas
fK=:Keil}
Gramm> Lai* ilj 426 K
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
C$dex Jmt
Caesar
5,Cr. V, 16, Z-4
r
Cassius Dio,
Caaius
209|
see under Dio
Cedreiius
(Bonn)
h p. 45 ^^ H m*
h p. 454
h P- 4S4> etc*
h p. 454 ? m*
2165
2a8
m\
*JZZ,
722
CMrmim Mimm
(Mommsen)
h 45
Claronkle of Ark 4 a
ch. 8 (Sachau, Eerl Akk,
19x5, Nr, 6, p. 64)
Cimnicm FmcMk
(Dindorf)
If 49 ^
C^rm^aphr &f A*B.
Mm. Germ. Amt Jat
IX, p, 148, 21 sgq.
Cicero
de i, 6a, 265
C&dix Just,
jVi. 3 .
?S6|Vn, 26, 6
VH,4S, 2:- ■
vfi, 64,;9-,
vii, 67, t ■ ,
viii, ;40,, i3. '
.VIII, 52, I '
ix, 2,-6
a, 8,. i:
IX, S, z
IX? 9»: 9 V
IX, ao, 4. . . .
ix% a a* 5
IX, 3a, 5 ■
IX, 32,6.
IX, 47, 2
[IX, 47, xa ■
IX, 49, 5
IX, 51, I ■
IX, 51, 6
IX, 51,1
X, II, z
iSfZ
16. 3
X, 32, 4-13
39 ? 3
|X, 4'^, a
Xf 46f i.-
|x, 48, a
X* 52, %
F» 53 ^ »
m S1» S '
F? 5 S>i:' .■■■
X, 61, t
61, a';./'
XK, 35?4 ^
1 54^
ai
354
386'
595
I, Sf 20
tf i 3 » 3 E
I, 14, 3
I, 17» 7
I, 26, 2
I? 54> 3
XI, I, S
lly t
Uf 26, 3
3IE {32),
«, 30, 4-5
nh s» «
III? 3?
III, 12, a
III? 34? ^
Hit 37? 4
IV, I, 2
IV, 2, 3
iv, ap, 10
IV, 65* 4
V, 62, 13
V? 71 ? 9
45S'
% 4 l
372'
353
74 i
83
S»
83
89
*9
83
S2
390 |
6941
.m,
St,
5B, 67'
^ 3 “
94
62*
' H
m
j Damascius
68 , 373! (Ruellc)
89 £)f primis printipHi, {,
Sij p. 321
3981
iJexippus
^^Scjikka
gjfrag- 3
' (F.G.fi. H,p.456)
frag. 6
(F.G.H. n, pp. 456 Iff.)
. . V 140, app
frag, ih 4
(F.Gii. II, ,p. 45;7|
frag. 6, 10
(F.G JL II, p, 459)
frag. 6, iD-fi
(iCGJl. II, ''p.. 459)
frag. 25
(F.G.H. 11, |i. 466)
frag. 26, itd'imt
(F.G J'L II, p. 468)
frag, 26, 6
(F.G.H. .11, p. 469)
frag. 36, 8-10
{F.G.H. II, p« 46$ if.) 144
frag. 27
(F.G.H. II, p. 470} C
144, 149, 161
frag. 27, 10
(F.G.H. II, p. 472)
frag. 28
(F.G.H. ii'rp »"472),
frag. 29
(F.G J'l ii,:p;474);
67!
.pi
67
82
67
$i
91
26
389
89!
363, 373
77
89. 373
Szj
4001
400!
403
90 ]
831
83!
' ■ 364
89*
83;
891
*» 7 > 39 S> 398
43
Codex Theod.
I, 27.S
II, 8, I
.IV, 7, I
iV, 17, I
[VI, 2Z, ipr.
VI, 35, 1
VI, 3 S >3
VII, 22, I
TOI, 4, I
XHi, 10, a
3:v, i4, lij.
83
2 fi 5 j
S8
694
694
6941
402 1
363!
389
39 °!
396
395
402
369
II?
147
t 59
160
159
160
144
IS 9
161
i€i
Digest
Ckastaatmos FojtpbyrO’
gemtus
Cmremsmis i, 92,
p. 424, 7'i|, %S%
pmmiarm
Mm* Germrn Mmi* Mm*
p# 230, 405I
2, 2, 12
% 3 ? 31
h h 33? 34
I, 4, I pn
1,4, I
k $f 17
I, 9, ipr*
I, II, I, 1:
I, iS, i
III 4? ^4
III, I, I, 10
:Mh a, 13, 6
iXXKf, 2, So pK
«V1, 7, 5, 5
iXXXlI, I, I, 4
IXXXIIi II
iXIXV, a, S9
Xt, r, spr *
lUi, I, a 7
xm, I, 57
XLVii, aa, 1
XLVIII, It? I
.XBVIII, 14, 1
m
68, 372 If.
66
353
29? m
46
it
380
:'a6|
S 73 ,''
358
3«2
36a
380
*5
*5
36a
S6a
374
mm
-ms
m
*6,
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
839
Digest
XLviir, 23, 2
373
XLIX, I, 25
68
XLIX, 14, 6, I
381
L, I, 22, 6
376
L, I, 38, I
31
L, 2-4
30
4 2? 3> ^ '
43
L, 4, 3, 10
30
L, 4? 1 8, 26
30
%'5;, '
31
I'j 5^ 8
66
h ' Sr 7: '
31
L, 6
31
L, 6* 6, 3-9
31
L, 6, '6, ii' , ^
31
L, 6, 12
31
I
271
L, 12, 10 ■■
30
Dio Cassius
(Boissevain, see p. 700,
n. I)
XXXVII, 18
421
XXXVII, 26, 3
60
Lii, 14-40
710
LII, 20, 2
26
LII, 20, 3
374
LII, 22, I
391
LII, 28, 3 Sqq*
65
LII, 31, I
60
LII, 32j I
60
LIII, 17, I
353
Lin, 18, I
353
LIII, 18, 2
354
LIII, 22, 3 sq*
373
LIII, 28, 2
352
LV,23
36
LV, 23^9'. 37, 127, 397
Lvni, ir, 2
303
LX, 28, 3. ■
710
LXV, 5? 2 ^
(p, 12 1 Boissevain)
363
LXIX, 8
710
LXXII, 10, 5
(p. 261 Boissevain)
356
LXXIII, 4, 2
710
LXXIII, 15, 6
(p. 297 Boissevain)
358
LXXIII, 23, 5
710
Lxxrv, 2, I sq.
373
LXXIV, 5, 4
2
■'LXXiV,::7;:;^''V;
2
LXXIV, 15, I
6
LXXV, I, 3
(p, 325 Boissevain)
364
LXXV, 2
(p. 339 Boissevain)
9
LXXV, 5, 4
(p. 346 Boissevain)
38
LXXV, 6
7
LXXV, 7, 4 ^9.
372
(p. 360 Boissevain) 375
(p. 361 Boissevain)
Ilxxvii, ioj 6
[LXXVII, II, I
Dio Cassius
(Boissevain)
/24:
iz
353
zi
Dionis Continuator Anon.
[frag. 15 (P.H.G. IV, p. 199)
694
Dio Chrysostom
\Or. m, 43 353
41
LXXVII, 14, I
LXXVII, 15, 1-2
LXXVII, 16, 3
LXXVIII, I, I
LXXVni, 2, 5
LXXVIII, 3, 3
:xviii, 5, 1
(p. 378 Boissevain)
LXXVIII, 9, 4~5
LXXVIII, 15, 6
LXXVIII, 16, 7
(p. 395 Boissevain)
LXXVIII, 17, I~2
LXXVIII, 20, I
LXXVIII, 22, I
LXXVIII, 23
LXXVIII, 23, 2
XXXIX, I, I
XXXIX, 3, 3
Xxxix, 6, 4
(p. 409 Boissevain)
|lxxix, 17, 3
(p. 421 Boissevain)
LXXIX, 22, i
LXXiX, 27, 4
LXXIX, 27, 5
LXXIX, 31, I
LXXIX, 32, I
(p. 440 Boissevain)
LXXIX, 35, I
LXXIX, 35, 5
LXXIX, 37, 4
|lxxx, 3, z sq.
(p. 475 Boissevain)
LXXX, 3, 3
LXXX, 4, 1-2
LXXX, 7, 1-3
LXXX, 9> 3
LXXX, 12, 2*
3^6
38
36
41
36
4x
39
42
43
43
366
45, 262
433
139
43
49
49
613
49
49 ,
164I
218
163
50
49x9
215
366
209
126
56
54
52
55
45
Dionis Continuator Anon
frag. 10, 3 (F.H.G. iv, p, 197)
frag. 10, 5 (F.H.G. IV, p. 197)
""■""■'■■■'""■'304^
i2(F.H.G,iv,p. 19S)
Ep. Hormisdae
370
Ennapius
[frag.4(F.H.G.rv,p 14) 323
%/l (Didot)
p. 458, 9 sq. 635
p. 458, 13x5^. 638
Euripides
\Eippolytu 5 , ^%sqq. 618
For Eusebius, see below,
p. 844
Eutropius
VIII, 20 44
vm, 22 53
IX, 7 139
IX, II, I 183, 369
IX, 3 94
IX, 4 16 6
IX, 9 188
IX, 12 193
IX, 13 ZOZiZoSsq.
IX, 13, I 152
IX, 14 $00
IX, 15 301
IX, 16 312
IX, 17 271, 316, 318
IX, 18 3^2
IX, 19 ^524
IX, 19, I 323
IX, 20 327
■IX, 21'' 33 I;’
IX, 22 3^8, 332
IX, 23 334^9-
IX, 24 33^
IX, 26 32s, 387
X, 2 343
X, 2, 3 345
X, 2, 4 345
X, 3, 2 348
Frdg, iuris Rom* Vatic*
148 424
Fronto
(N=Naber)
\ad arnicas, i, 13 (p. 182 N) 576
\ad Ant. Imp.
l» 5 (p* 98 N) 574
n, 5 (p. 107 N) 575
84c
INDEX GF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Fronto
(X '--rr. Xakr)
ad
nr (p. 149 s)
nr (p. I n)
IV (p. i,b >')
ad M. Cafs.
n , I (p* 25 N)
II, 5 (p. 29 N)
3, 3 (p. 63 K)
Herodiau:
IV,
IV,
(p*
/ 3
ad Ferum Imp,
il, 1 (p. i;24N)
de craL h 43* ^93
III, 6, 24
nr* 25* 9S
£ p , 1I5 3j I i6-ii8
Episf , jl/ar. 114, 1, 3 sq .
Gains
’IV, 9, 2-3
jv, to, 2-*4
57 s‘iv, «o,j
574;^’^ » I 5 » I
3> 4
V, 3, 6-S
; V, 3.
i V, 6, z
; VIj 2*_ 3
livi* 7* 2
Ivi, 7 > S
575
Z 3 g
574 ;
S 74 i
5 ’ 75;'^"4 7 » ^
lylm , «, s
I, g
575:
575
h 5
I'V, 46
Galen
Pn^irepL I* 38
Giegory of Tours
I, 31-4
Herodian
29^
263
251
vii, 2, I -2
VII, 2* 9
vu, 3
vn, 3> ^
vir, 6* 2
VII, 10, 5
VIZ, 10 , 6
virx, I, 2-3
VIII, I, 9
VHI, 6, 2
yni, 7, 4
-S'.
1* 8,4
l, 16, 4
H, 3» 3
K, 3, 3 .
II, 4 » ^
li, S, 6
II, 10, 9
II, 14, 3 sq,
Ih 7
n* i 5 > ^*5
III, I, I
III, 2, z
III, 2, 7
m 3 * 3
III, 4 i 3
m, 4, 9
m, <» I
Ill, 7, 2
III, 8, 2
III, 8, 5
in, 8, 6
III, 9, 12
III, If, 8
III, 14, 2
IV, 3, 5-9
tv, 5, I
, IV, 7, 3
IV, 8, I
^55
374!
366
. , 366
366
366
. . 2
365 sg.
374j
373
14
14
14
14
216
36
8|
14]
15 '
191
366
546:
363
36]
43 '
%66 sq,‘
164]
HoraK ■ .
\0d. If 3, 38 595|
'Od, I, 22, msq, ■ ' 596’
iSaL II, I, 86 595’
For Jerome, see below, p. S45.:
215
36s
73,
366:
215I
141
75
■ 76
366, 374:
3 ^B’
$n
215;
ml
363, 368^
368
j Julian
49!Ci?»‘t;. [Cuvn], 314 A-B
49\£fist, 11
zi§\ (n
2S5',0n I, p. 34 c
5 ^ ^ ■
5^ Laiercuius Ffromnsis
1 5 pst cd . Seeck,
r^i P-* 53 )
s 4 ij ' htM Grammaticus
. (Bonn)
p. S5
li!0 Xlagnus...
73 {Migne, I\ L
LiVf 900)
3^5
638
618
399
*■55
•'692
370
Libanius
Or. SLII, 21
ILII, 2 1 fi passim
XiVil ■ '
Livy
;V, 27 ■
Ltidan .
Deorum cmdUumf 9
luppiPer irag, 8
Lucretius
Jofeannes Antiocbenns
frag* 148:
(F,H*G. IV, p. 59S) 93
frag* r.50
(F.H*G. IV, p* 59S) 195!
frag* 151 : . ' '
{F.H.G. IV, p. 59S) . 22S:
frag. 152, 2
(F.H.G. rv, p. S99) i7fij
Jordanes
(M ss Mommsen) ■'
GelicdE, X¥, 84 M If
lYI, 89 sqq , M , 142
XVI,, 90 M/ , 93!
XIX, 104 M , 22S''
XX, 107-108 M 721
XX, 108 M 721
Rommaf 287 M 139]
288 M 146
290 M 152:
290 If. M 303
■ 3 ^ 5 * 3 *®
,,295 u . ' 322, 323,
:,.:33:Si
" 300 i*', : 'v.JiS'
I, -1,1 1 2.-
V* 33 ^
V| 373
,279
^73
2'67
5S6
440
440
608
60S
608
Lupus Stwitm
De Metris B§eti Likeiim (cd.
Pciper, 1871, p» xxvii) 585
Lydus
ilk Magisir * I, 4 402
Macrobiiis
Sah V, I, 7 576
Malalas,
(Bonn)
XII, p. 296,9(1, 391,11. I,
ed. Oxford) 133
xir, p, 296, 12 iff. 133
XII, p, 297, tgsf. 136
xii, p. 299, 4 I So
|Xn, p, 299, 10 366
XII, p. 301 300 if.
|xxi, p. 307 sq, 136
p. %07f 3 iff. 405
ra, , „ ,,335
Marimis
Life of ProchSf 38 ad fB» 638
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO 841
Marios Victorinos
(K=Keii)
iix, 14 {Gramm. Lat. vi,
122, 9 k) 5%|
III, 14 {Gramm. Lat. vi,
i22, 9T^^. k) 584]
Nemesianos
Cynegetka^ 63-85 606
' i
■' Not. Dign. Occ. ,
XXX 395*
Not. Dtgn. Or.
vn, 7(=42) 214
vm, 7(=39) 214
XXIX 395
Oracula SibylMna
(Rzach)
xirr, 89x^9. 1341
xiir, iig sqq . 134I
Panegyrici Latini
(Baehrens)
vixi (v), 6-7
VIII (V). 9. 3-4
vm (v), 10
VIII
VIII
vm (V), 18, 3
IX (iv), 18, 4
X (n), 3. 3
X (n), 5, 1
x (u), ro, 3
X (IX), 13,4
XI (in), 7, 2
XI (lir), 10 sqq.
XI (m), II, 1-3
XI (m), 12, 2
\Sat. II, 69
Origo Constant.
(Mommsen, Chron.
imp.
Min. i)
p. 7
343
p. 8
345
Orosius
vn, 20, 3
92
vn, 21, 5
228
VII, 22, 2-3
228
VII, 22, 7
139
VII, 23, I
146, 196
vn, 23, 2
193
VII, 23, 4
152, 299
vn, 23, 5
306
vn, 24
315
vn, 24, 3
316
vn, 25, 2
327
vn, 25, 5
328
vn, 2 5, 6
331
vn, 25, 8
334 J9.
vn, 25, 9 sqq.
336
VII, 27, 10
228
Orphicorum fragmenta
(Kern)
, 108, no. 32 g
Panegyrici Latini
(Baehrens)
in (xi), 20, I
VI (vii), 2
VI (vii), 2, 2
VI (vn), 5, 2
VI (vn), 12
VI (vn), 21
VI (vn), 21, 4
VII (vi), 2
vni (v), 4
435
197
680
,224]
33=^
3491
680
681
680
680]
(V), 10,
(V), 14-:
I
•20
Persius
33»
213
HS
224
318
397
395
328
328
386
328
328
388
386
5*9
Petrus Patricius
frag. 8 (F .H.G. rv,
p. 186 r^.) 141
frag. 12 (F.H.G* rv,
p. 188) 2991
frag. 13 (F.H.G. rv,
p. 188x9.) ‘ 337
frag. 15 (F.H.G. rv,
p. 189) ^ ^ 692
frag. 162 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, III, p. 743) 184
frag. 163 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, ni, p. 743)
^ 184, 230
frag. 165 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, III, p.^743) ^^5
frag. 166 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, III, p. 744) 1 77
frag. 168 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, ill, p. 744) 1 76
frag. 1 69 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, lir, p. 745) 7=^^
frag. 171 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, III, p. 745 )
frag. 178 (Cassius Dio, ed.
Boissevain, nr, p. 747) 3^®
Philostratus
Fit. ApolL lY, %
Fit. Soph, ii, 20, 2
Cod. 118
Photius
Plato
Symposium^ 173 d
Timaeus^ 53 A-55 C
248
21
639
638
esg
Pliny
r/. VI, 19, 4
239
X, 96 (97) sq.
516
Pan. 49
2^56
3
'354
Plotinus
EnneadSf ii, 9
422
11,9, 5.^99.
627
in, 8
624
lily 2 admit.
623
Ill, 8, 4x99.
625
in, 8, 10
626
IV, 9, 3
624
V, 5, 3
363
V, 8, 6
623
VI, ad jin.
624
Porphyry
Be Abstinentiay IV y 16
429
IV, 17
614
Be RegressUy frag. 12
(Bidez, Vie de For-
phyrey App. n, p.
42* sq.)
&33
Life of Plotinus, 7
660
' 12 ,
676
Procopius
mist. Arc. xi, 23
460
Ptolemy
I, n, 7
247
Scriptores Historiae Augustae
Alex. Se^. 3, 4
589
4>3
364
16, I
54
18, 2
364
18, 3
36*
3'-5
60
21, 9
54
22, 1-2
54
24
262
33> I
60
33? ^ ^65, 273
37? 9
599
39? 3
54
39? 9
54
44? 9
589
65,4
599
Aureliany 3 X99.
298
16, 1-2
190
18 sqq.
299
18, 6
156
21, 9
374
22, t-2
152
22, 2
302
24, 2"'9
302
842 INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Scriptures Hisimae JuguMae ' Scripii^m HisiCfriMe Jugusim i Ecripim^s Hiiimaf
Jureiian^ 25^ a-3
303,Cfoi/. 5, 10
599!Fr»to, 13 If,
3x5
25, 3-6
56
.. 2.1,7. ■
589
i 3 f ^
318
25^ 4*4
3<>4
12, 12
5891
* 3 ^ 7
*57
zh 4
304^
%mm* 14, 3
35^1
14
3x5
aSj, X
304
27 f 7 ■
24 s
^ 5 i 3
3x5
30,4
152
iS If,
366
.1.6, I
257
31
305iGdL/i. 2, ^
185
16, 4
3x6
32
306
4 t 3
200:
! 7, 4-6
316
3 h a -3
305
4 . 7-8
7 zij
1 S, I . ■
316
33
307
5 * S
zzBl
I if t -3
164
3 ^
310
j, 6-6, J
fzt!
iS, 5
316
38
30a
1,2
721
ig, 8
241, 271
38. z
2661 273
6, 6
242
.20, .3
3x7
39
309;
■
188
zCf 5
275
39 t 7
301 1
■ ■ g, i
21S
20^ 6
267
40. 3
368^
It, 2
72l|
2.T ■
31K
4 ^. n
312
1 .r-iS
605!
.2:2, 4
3x7
46'~E
273
1 2, £
72x|
*3
3^7
47 » 3
273
, 13,4-5
1771
23, 2 iff,
267
4S
30S
i. 3 »^
722!
*, 3 i 3
27s
48, I
277
13,6-7
y22i^/ad /)'r, (Firmui etc,)
48, 2
271
13, 6-10
721.1
:l-fl
305
Amd, Cass, 8, t
S 9 *
13, 8
7.■22
1, 2
599
Carmaikh 5
5 J 0
9
7.22 If,
.Ss- *
278
Carinus^ iS* 3
329
2 3 »
7^3
7 *ff *
3 X 5 '
CamSf 69. 1,
31S
3
190
.8
446
■ ■■ 7 * 3 '
321
183'
S 3 » *
. 316
8. I
322
3, I
■ 43
1417..
316
izt
Gsnaf. ires^ 7
59S
SevemSf . 5, i ■
3
8,7
322
18-20
59S
S» 3
S
10
408
21, 3-4
599
s, 7
6
II
■ ■ ■■ 606
z6f 3-4
'1 42
8, 1.2
€
■■■12,2
322
3 ^* J'
142
XI
1,0'
13, I
325
7 , 6
257
It, .4
372
23. 3
322, 606
Iff/* I, 6
53^
■■'..12
3
323
2, 4
59 ^
Ttfajtei, 1-2
310
16 577.
3^3
. , 24.1 X ■ ■
59 ^
9 •
312
17, 6
321
i^ 7 » 7
59 ^
' ■■xi' .
31a
■ . ■lS,''^2, '
323
iS,4
598
14, X
3X2, 371
19
323
■ 20,. I. ■■ ■■■
53
18-19
3II
20, 6
242
Marcm^ 11,7
260
Trig* tjr, z
134
Claudius^ 6f i
723
11, 8
*39
3 j X
132
,.■■■■ l 5 f ,I"*2
722 sq.
ilfc*. dm^ %
It
3 ? 3-4
200
5
722
a, 7“9
215
3 »
200
89 I
722
■ 12, 10
5^0
9
200
8, 2
723
24 , X
3 %
5 > *
200
8y 4
723
» 7 » 3-5
57 *
5 > 5
200
9, 3«-4
722
28. 7
363
6, j -3
188
9>4
7^3
29, xo
599
12, IS
185
9 ? 7
722
599
2.5, 7
179
9, 7-S
722
ilte. 1?/ 16, 3
141
27
7*4
9, 8
722
Op, MacK I, 3-5
599
28
724
II, 3
721
i 6, 8
37 *
3 X
306
1 1, 3-4
721
t 9 » 3
52
n, 3-8
722
! 15, 4
598
Seneca
II, 6-S
72 :
5 PtrftnaXf 3, 3 ^ff .
*39
‘ di prm, 6, 6
5 #
12 , I
722 W
. 6, 8
373
12, 3
19;
; Prifims^ a, 7
599
Septimw#
12, 4
,723
t - 7,4 .
314
Bafiteas, P&efim Lai, Mm,
18, I
. "'72!
s ■' 9*'*'
iSo, 314
J VI, 384-8
sh
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Sidonius Apoilinaris
Stobaeus
EcL I, 3, 56
Suetonius
Claudius^ 17, 2
' Dow. 7, .2 ■ ■ ' '
Vesp.xA^
Syncelios
(Bonn)
p. 674
p. 705, 20 Iff,
p. ;
p, 716, 16 Iff.
pp. 717 Iff.;
p. 717, 9 Iff.
p. 720
Tacitus
Agricola, 9
Annals, xti, $6
xni, 4
Germania, 9
EisU I, 4
XI, 22
Terentianus Maurus
de Lit SylL Metr. 1816
1922
1931
ms
1991
2448
Totius orhis descriptio
Muller, G,GM. xi,
P‘ 5 ^ 9 ^ §34
Vegetius
De re militari, 2, 2
Virgil
Aen. VI, 135
Georg. II, 502
Volusius Maecianus
Distributio, 66 iff.
589 XXI, 25 (p
XII, 25 (p
Xir, 26 (p
271, 614x11, 26 (p
xn, 26 (p
XII, 27 (p
236 XII, 28 (p
238 XII, 29 (p
363 XII, 29 (p
XII, 30 (p
XII, 30 (p
XXI, 30 (p
199 XII, 31 (p
HSxii, 3i (p
234
721 XII, 31 (p
72^x11, 33 (p
721 XII, 33 (p
722 If. XIII, I (p
Zonaras
.601)
602)
L 604)
►. 604 If.)
1. 605)
1.606)
1.608)
.609) 315,
K 610)
>. 610)
>. 61 1)
>, 61I If.)
). 613)
U 614)
). 62417.)
). 622)
623)
1. 1)
Zosimus
Zosimus
190 h 59 305
225, 230 1 , 60 If. 305
192, 217 I, 61 305 Iff., 309
722 I, 61 If. 3^0
7221,63 3^^
228,3091,64 313
3121, 66 3^5^ 3^7
3m3^oi,ST sq. 315
3181.68.1 159
3221.68.2 315
322 I, 68, 3 164
3221,69 31^
324IJ71 3 i^j 319
I, 71, I 31^
► 335, 662 I, 71, 1-2 164
328 n, 8 344
349 n, 8, 2 343
343 n? 9 ? 2 343
343 n, 10 347 ^ 9 -
ii, 20, 2 - 345
II, 13 349
6311,14 35®
16611, 18 691
143, 145 II, 32, 2 389
145 n, 34» I 397
146 II, 34, 2 399
168111,32,4
168
zts Anecd.Syr.
146, 168
133 I, p. 18 132
Moses of Chorene
16411, 7 *
I6I — —
Christian Authors
147^ .
Genesis
154X925 47S
159? 374
147, 228 Leviticus
72^ •^■9* xxin, 15-21 5^9
187, 7^1
190 Isaiah
m XIX, x-4 675
722
722 Matthew
72-3 XIX, 12 4^^» 492
72^3 XXV, 31-46 508
723
164 Luke
IS*, 5“’'
John
303
XVI, 12-13 457
Acts
304 ^
Zonaras
(Bonn, vois. ii, iir) r, 46, 2
xn, 15 (p. 573) ^^5 47
xir, 19 (p. 583) ly 4^ -^7*
xn, 20 (p. 589) 145 49
xn, 21 (p. 590) ^*5^7 5® ^97
xir, 22 (p. 591) 147’ ^ 9 ^ 5®>
xn, 23 (p. 594) ^34^7 5^7 3
xn, 24 (p. 596) 157, 1597 7^3 h 55
xn, 24 (p. 599) ^^5 ^7 57 -fy*
3 ^^J 7 1I7 3
3 ® 5 1, 20, 2
3691,23,1
4*6 1, 23, 2
3671’, 4. 1
21° 1, 25, 1
rus
’ 5 ° 4 1, 26, a
‘ SfS I, 27, I
' S?4 i,* 7,*
J 5 ®S I, 28, I
ptio I7 33 ? 3
^ ^7 347 3
6 ^ 44 ?’ ,^8
I7 37-3^^
h 377 I
^ I, 377 2
h 377 3
It 39 * I
I, 4®7 I
596 I, 40, 2
^®3 I, 41
It 43 * I
3®7 I, 43, 2
I, 45 * I
, h 45 “^
ni) r, 46, 2
215 I, 47
88 I, 48 If.
145 I, 49
168, 228 I, 50 Iff.
147, 196 I, 50, 1-2
13417 5^7 3
Anecd. Syr,
(Land)
844
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Christian Authors
2 Corinthians
I, 1 1
vr, 20
rn
1
1% 2S-21
SI, 26
Augiistiiit ■ .
De Civit, Mf viij 4 2|i'
4 - * DxL Ckrui* !¥., 41-50 601
454...^^^ r
13B, 19
£p
Cyprian
rm. Re&g, iwj
4 ^z\^P
44S
5S0
V* 24
iv, 13
H, 14
^3
Galatians
Ephesians
Tims
Peter
.444» .
526! Caidhgtis Libirimus j
jzSxix S34j
I Clement of Alexandria ■
47i,£V£ PmpL 56 479!
Exce ex TkemhtQi Sa 527^
Pmd. I, 45 527
Jtw miveturj^ 12-14
‘ , 4BC
Simmakist hztf 146-,' i-a
Revelation
XIV, 4
XX, 4
Xx* 4 sqq*
XX* €
5S8
543
49^
466
487,
466
70, i
7t'. 3
7a,
74
74i I
75
7S»
75.
50
80, I.
51
Acta Cyfrmni
7
17
,Fka €}prmm\ 9 , „
‘Senimiiae Episco^ s mm ,
5^7
54 1
541
541
541
54^
459
541
666
206
54’^
$4t
194
206
228
Acta Martymm
(ed, Rialaart)
P- 3 J3 f/. 3*«
pp, 440 Sfq* (edi3, of 1859)
676
pp. 477 Iff. 676
Africanus, Julius
Ckrmkks (Rontli, ReAquiae^
Saerae^y II, 244 jf 306)
47s:
Clement of Rome -
\Ep. I ad Cer, xtvii, t 453,
Coramodian
Carm, A.p§L (Dombarl)
5S7 60$
791
Consmtine
lOraiw ad Semckrum coetum*
Lxxxvii de Haer. Bapt,
541
Cyprian
\ad Demeir, 5, 10
De hpsiSf 5
27 ■
De Mf^rt 14, 16
£>.8
Ambrose
Ep. 17,
Arles, CbuncE of
Can, 3
7
Arnobim
h 39
h 4b e,f *
I, 58
I. 65
II, 27
II, 32
II, 64
n, 69
III, 7
Atbenagoras
SwppL 33
395
%3
693
5^3
664]
6501
%3,
6oSi
608;
608
608
651
458
Cyril of Jerusalem
Migne, P.G. xxxin,
1 158 B-i 269 A 6S4
Dec return Geiasimum
Migne, P. I. iix, 1.63 605, 607
24
309
206
52J
■ 228
S36
9 536'
20 e26
536
22 536
27 536
28, ■ ■■ ■ 536^
30 53^. 539. ^oz
3C*. 3 5*1
31 53 ^
35 53^;
3» 53^. 539. ^02
37 53<S'
45, "3' (Hartel, p, 602,
18-19) 541
55. 5 539]
55. 9
55» 14 521
55, 24 (Hartel, p, ^42,
12-15) 54*
5^. 9 ao5j
59. b 205]
62, I t$z
% *4 5^6
70’ , ■ 54i:'
Epipbanias
IHflrn XXXIII, 3 iff.
XLVI, I
XLVII, 2
XLvm, I
XLVIII, 4
XLVIII, II
X'LIX, 1 1
LI, 33
LXVI
Episi&ia Apmi&krum
15 Schmidt
45*
491
4S7
456
457
457
459
456
510
528
E«Kbi«s
Cbrsmcmy under Olympiad
456
238, I
de mart. Fa!,
PraeK i
I (long vc»ioE):
I, 1 (Syriac A)
h 4
4, 12
9. *
9. 3
10, 2
II (long vewion.
666
676
493
607
676
670
671
676
Git»k
text, Schwartz, p. 923,
20) , . ^ 666
*i>9-i3 ' , 676
ii> 24 ' 666
ii> so 676
INDEX or PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Eusebius
Demonsiratio E^angelica ,
1,8 660
VI, 20, 9 675
vr, 20, 16-19 675
viii, 5 , ' ^751
' ■ IX, 2, 4 : , ' '^75
Hist. EccL h ^43
I? 13 ■ 493 ,
11,2,4, 644I
■ : in, ' 37 ? I '' 455 '
IV, 3, I 4^3
IV, 3, 3 463
„ - V . ■ iv,' 9 ■ . ,, 517
, ■ IV, 13 '■ 5^7
IV, 26, 7 sqq. 461
IV, 27 45 ^
V, I, 3 -- 3 > 3 51^
V, 3, 4 45 ^
V, 16
V, 16, 7 45 ^
Eusebius
\Praeparatio E<vmgelica
HI, ss.f. 67s
IV, 20-21 05^
, VI, 6 653
|? 7 l.CD«rf. I, II 713'
I, 14. 1
1, 22 344 ,
1, 28 683
ii, 50 665
IV, 7 5 ^ 7 ^^
IV, 20 6891
IV, 36 640 I
jFrag. I (F.G.H. n,p.48o) 7^^
Firmicus Maternus
\pe etrore profancLrwn
religionum^ 5 447
9 4471
Jerome
\Ckron. (Helm)
p. 216 , 10 sqq.
p. 219, 4-^77*
p. 220 , 24
231 , 14 W
V, 16 , 10
459 .
V, 17/3 ^ 7 *
455 ^
V, 18 , 2
458
V, 24
488
V, 26
475 ^
V, 28
533
VI, 20 , 2 .
644
VI, 28
75 <
VI, 41 , 22 .^ 7 .
659
VI, 43 t 3
644
VI, 43 , II
535
VI, 44
487
VI, 45 ^ 7 *
540
VII, 5
4 S 9
VII, 5 , I
540
VII, 5 , 4-9
541
VII, 6
542
VII, 10 , 2-9
205
VII, 10 , 9
206
VII, 13 207 , 522
VII, 21 , I sqq.
228
VII, 22 , 12-23
94
^ir. lU. 15
53
58
1 67
\Ep. 4i:r 3
53» 8, 17
70r 5
107, 12
845
387
228
139
607
605
590 , 601
597
602
458
586
597
602
Gildas
hronicoiti c. X ^79
Gregory Thaumaturgus
«gne, P.G. X, 1037 m-
Hippolytus
'‘hurch Order i ed. Connol ^
(Texts and Studies, vol
VIII, No. 4, Appendix B)i
for other editions see p. 524I
supra, n. 3
p. 176
p. 183
pp, 183-6
p. 18517.
p, 18717.
p. 190
\In Daniel rv, 18, 19
Justin
\Apol I, 13 4^4
zisq. 4%
65 x 77 . 5^3
66 , 2 5 ^^
pial c. Tryph. So sq. JifiS
Lactantius
VII, 24 sq.
vir, 26 , I
vn, 30 , 16
VIII, 2 , 4
VIII, 4
VIII, 4 » 3
VIII, 6 , 5
VIII, 6 , 9
vm, 10 , 4
vm, II
VIII, 14, 1
VIII, 17
IX, 7, I
IX, 9 , 10-13
DC, 9a, 2
X, 5
X, 5 , 2-6
205I
487
543
490,
6661
664
664'
666
667
664I
674
679I
671
687
685
669
689
673
v,9
VII, 20
VII, 35 -^ 7 *
IX, 2 sq.
IX, 7
IX, 10 sqq.
IX, II, 3
IX, 12 , 25
X, 23 17 .
X, 27
526
527
S^7
5^7
524
527
456
534|
43S
473
533
533
533
533
533|
.534|
533
533
V, I.
V, I:
V, I
Irenaeus
lAd^v. Haeres. i, 10 , 1-2 529
I, 22 , I 529 I
l , 27 473
ni, 3 , 2-3 533
m, 3, 3 531
III, 4> I 5^9
HI, II, 12 455
IV, 46> 3 »34
'7> 3
664
7» 4
663
5
652
22
597
25
602
z
675
I, 10
674
I, 19
517
2? 13
652
0
652
i5> II
661
5» I
223
5’ 5
223
5, 6
183
6
309
397
7» 3
399. 402
7? 4
395
7>5
396
7p 6
405
7» 7
405
7.8
399> 567
10 sq.
665
II
663
II, 5 ^?. 389
13
666
17. 3
340
18
340 sq.
18 , 5
384
18 , 9
388
19
669
19 , X
sqq. 384
20
350
20 , 4
385
24
544
344
26
345
26 , 2
402
846 INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Pisiis S^pMa' I ■ TertiilliaR
■ " ■ 47^^^^ r«, mrw. S
if
Ide'Jfit.. anm, ' t
■ vel t ■
Lactantias
di mori pers* 26, a-3
345 =
afi, 3
3893
ai!5i 4
3853
■27'
34fi
28
34fi
2.9-30
349 f
. , 29, 2
347
3^# 3^9-
39S
32, s-6
347
34
671
35^4
385 ,
3^
350
3 ^t 4
348
43
35°
44,3
682
44» 5
683'
46 447»
688
48
689
■ ^ j
Liber FmiifmUs ■
(Mofnmsen)
XIX, p, 24 If,.
534 J
xxi, p. 27
535
Mar^'rmm Pafyeafpi
i'7-iS.
529
Metbodlw
(Boowetsch) «
SympQsmmf vi, 5, p, 70,
8 if.
61S
Minticiiis Felix
9, 6
595
10, 3-s
59®
19-20
59S
«9# 5
358
31# a
595
3^» 5
596
pmkmes to
He Gaspek
Lietzmaan, Kkine Texte*
I, p. 16, 16
543
Origen
Cmira Cehum^ f, 9
440
II, 30
486
II, 79
203
HI, 15
zot
Be Frincipits
ri, S, 3 (Koetsciiaii, p.
*59)1
■ Praedk. Peiri \
P, Ckmmt ■M^x.f EirQm.
\% 5 4^4;
Pmm qf Fkiiem md
PMkmmus
Passm SS. ^aiM<^r
C&mnaiQmm ■
lA. SS« Mo^eniber, voL. ill,
|>p. 748--B4 6^6
Theodore!
Fah» I, 22
Tlicophiitts
ad duioL 2 %
11, 30
483
m, 5, 1-15 (iCoetscliaii,
p. 273) 4*3
h lik JesM Nam^
Em* IX, 10 ^ 671,
In Lmam Em* 6 296]
Fruideiitius
R IS
Tatian
601
Syriac Aufhon, etc.
(Patristic and Hereiiral)
dti! of Skarhii
W. Ciiietoii, Ancimt
Syriac Dmrumenis^ p. 56
memtSy. m* J Oreei Frag-
ment of Taiim*s Biaiessarm
from Doura-t ed. Kraeling.
"495
Tertallian
JpoL
* I, 14
, z
€
It .
■ 30
529,
,8 ■
5
6
x6, 3 ■■
n :
aS^ ,
30
34
35 :
37# 4 - -r- :
39
39, 16-19:.
42
de mim* 9
20
de bapi* 4
7-g
.*S
\de car* 1, 1
de miiffem* ti, 13, 6
de idd* to
diprmsc* 13
3^5
.'.5941
296!
5^7:
537^
537l
S37|
5^9!
■ 21
37^1
594!
593
592# 594:
35®,
59 X
35,
660
593
593
„ .. .5a4’,
S16]
593
592,
sn.
5»7,
540
222
5=^71
■2.041
S92'
53^91
536,
53^
527
592
591
4S7
49S
477
477
mm.
Aphraates
VII, 20 (Wright,
p. 147 If. 5 Pari-
sot, col. 345)
XVIII, 10
5.04 :
499
50 'I
Ephraim* $ Pmse Refmmtims
(ed. MitcMI)
p. txm 498
ill, pp. cxxii iff. 497
'Q* Flligel,
Fikrisi
Mmit p.
F*
90
9$
Kipkaima
sm*
;»ky, j
15, 24 iff, (Scbmkii-
Poloteky, Atei-Fufif*/,
p- 47)
Kkmstumifi
i-S
,509
512
504
Sit
Mcjfics bar Kepha ,
Natl, Burdesmes
/Ogltf I, II, pp.
5i3-S'5)
». {p. 514)
Rabbok
Overbeck, Ep'krmml Syn
fif., p. 172
Ttieodore bar Kciritl ■
'fp* Pogaon, Inter* mm-
daim^ p. 193
497
497
501
507
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Inscriptions
Inscriptions |
C
U Annie ipigraphtque
1904, no. 60
7*4
1908, no. 146
7
1910, nos. 133, 141
56
19x2, no. 89
214
1916, no. 46
17
1920, nos. 68--70
31
1922, no. 1x6 30 W
1932, no. 28
144
X937, no. 232
208
Archaeologia Aeliana^ 4th
ser. IX, 1932, pp. 233-4
38
B.^.A. xxm, 1918-19,
nos. 67 sqq.
*56
Bruns, Pontes'^
(nos.) 56
35*
61
*75
86
362
1X2
*43
llg
2
1 1 5, III, 6 sqq.
240
1 1 6, HI, 9 sqq.
240
Byzantion, ll, 192,1 p- 33°
4,8
VI, 1931,?. 423
459
C.LG. 5892
4*7
C.I.L. n, 179
424
n, 4125
12
II, 4949
144
III, 1176
144
in, 1623
26
HI, 2328^®®
214
in, 4121
694
in, 5933
155
in, 5935
35^
in, 6995
3^
HI, 7586
152
III, 7901
26
663
III, mil
HI, 12326
360
'in,.T2376,\'
147
ni, 13612
8
in, 14416
139
V, 803
414
V, 808
94
V, 4007
437
VI, 216
663
VI, 508
VI, 967
VI, 14x8
VI, 1454
VI, 1641
VI, 1645
VI, 1675
VI, 2001
VI, 2009
VI, 3069
VI, 32326, 29
4*5
*57
391
5^
188
214
424
53? 5^
mm
5*5
373
vn, 106
VII, 200
VII, 210
VII, 273
vii, 280
VII, 281
vn, 351
VII, 513
VII, 732
VII, 838
VII, 912
VII, 964
VII, 1002
VII, 1003
VII, 1042
VII, X044
VII, 1045
VII, 1x64
VII, XI 86
VII, 6580
VIII, 20
VIII, 996
VIII, 1578
VIII, 2080
VIII, 2716
VIII, 2766
VIII, 5180
VIII, 9040
VIII, 9045
VIII, 9047
VIII, 9317
VIII, 9360
vm, 17726
IX, 687
X, 5909
XI, 304
XI, 1178
XI, 2914
XII, 1277
XIII, 1753 sq ,
XIII, 1807
xin, 3162
XIII, 3593 :
XIII, 3679
XIII, 5203
XIII, 6592
XIII, 6671:
XIII, 6763
XIII, 6780
XIII, 7566 a .
XIII, 7613*
XIII, 8017
xrv, 3457
XIV, 5340 . .
XVI, ,132
\ C . R . Ac . Inscr .
1906, p. 75? ^
1914, pp. X47 sqq-
1917, pp. 275^??*
36 ;
..51
42
38
38
38
371
36'
42
38
. 371
42
39
42
4*1
27
42
42
42
42
42
8
215
2151
36!
36
841
3 ^> 37 '
36
3041
217
2I7|
121
393
,.38|
216
3141
X 58 !
435
422!
85
37
2121
188
1551
2I2|
' 428 ]
213
158
4*3
ZI2
157
363 ,
iSSj
212
Inscriptions
C.R. Ac. Inscr.
1934? P- 107 sq.
Carm. Lot, Efig. 25
Cat. des sculptures et in-
scriptions des Musics
du Cinquantenairey ed .
2, pp. 158 sqq.
Dessau 98
244
341
410
41S
419
420
421
422
425
426
429
430
431
448 sq.
451
453
454
458
466
470
478
479
480
48^
485
505
509
510
sn
544
546
547
, 55*V
5^1
5^9
576
577 ^ 7 -
579
583
585
597
613
614
, 618 :
627
629
638
6$9
664
694
1X27
1X28
847
429
428
436 ^
4141
4*7
437
362
35*
413
' 2
355
12
355
359
355
10
359
22
22
417 355? 359
355
47 36<S
357
355
355
53? 56
359
51
58
58
359
64
88
90
93? 358
91
213
214
359
359
187
217
304
358
304
*99? 358
360
316
358
358
359
360
39*
414
398
683
373
362
848
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO
Inscriptions
lasaripilom
.i
Inscriptions
Dessan 11.40
Dessau 4313. '
m'i
,G\R.R. IV, 444 ,
-51
1141
7
4316
427!
iV, 499
419
043
■ '^ 5 '
43^9 '
56;
It’, if/?
4 'ftR
lt$Z
12
4.330
IV, 1581: ■■
22
4332
Smfhrriptim sf dniamh.
1157
4 .i
4361
43 ?!
E. Preuschtiii, Jnahria^,
S159
44^ 48
4362
437 j
Pi. I frubingeii, 1909),
ijSS
ziS
4422
426}
p. 100
687
1x90x9.
361
443S
4 ^ 31 :
f.kir.
1194
182
5osoa
111
XI, 1921, n. 102 37, 42
1209
60
sfio
XIV, JI924, p. 25
43?
1310
3'-9
5^93
3 7 *
XIX, 1929, p. 214, no.
1 , 3 '*^
1211
390 »
393 » 394
$84* : .
8
xxvih i 917 i P' * 4 ?
1213
39 ^:» 393
6730
213
so* 7
4.2
X2I4
389.
393 » 394
6870
tf/ Zt^rokisier
1217
39a
6987 ■
31 >
266
I* 13
1 1 a
iisS
393
8914
16
24
1 10
1230
39 ^
S920Xf*
S8
11. 2 7 -*8
109
ms
77
S929
389
L 2'8
109
1329
ss>
54
8938
389,
3 '*
382, 400
%79
78,
362
.33
1332
214
9021
362!
34
ir?
^353
9, 29
9X03
3* Kt*ii and Premewteiii, Driik
1370
362
9105
■19
Reise (DenhcSrsfim
dfr
1406
22
9284
46
Wim, /flea/. LVii, 19x4-
-^ 5 )*
1459
'362
9204
37S
nos. 9, 2 ^> 51
22
' ■ 1638
362
9221
77 \N&L degii Sca%^i
, 204.5.
398
9479 ■.
94
m 4 f PP* 353 m-
4*9
■ ■ 2 « 59 ,
S2
9493
14
X931, p. 313
.1.1
' .■.2185.
3 *
* 935 ^ PP* 91 m* ■
427
2186,
ri 7
■ SSx"
3 ^* 0.0JX KXK
27
2.1SS
S 3
SES 83,:
26S,
271]
519 90,
z$Z
■ 2324 .
52
. 1042
4101
S 9 S * 4 S»
427
2315
52
X 22 f
*491
640 .129,
III
ms
4 ®
Edktum d^pretmCMommsetiA
. 64^ ■
278
2%$Z
48
Blilmaer)
764, IL x6
4*1
2441 '
356
1, 12 Xf.
WlSpmimk # iAe Serk
2455
355
11, .24 .
405
Jmd. I.IIV, Class ir,
248s
27
xrx, 27
242
s^f 1933* P‘ 58*
2540
2x6
XXX, X
269
1:75
214
2618
3 % 39
Epk £pm IX, 101.2. '
37 \Trmiaetims ike Cum^
afij?
Hemeid, Pm.JhtEy Glt»aiy
i^£rimdmd Wesimar^
2762
37
' m* 214 ■
iz6
imd Jndg, md JrtA*
2767
182, 599
BO^ssS
X15
Sme^$ N.S* xxx.
2781
399 i
nos* 7E0-X
ii 5
mOf p. 199
38
27S2
39^1
no. 798
1x6
2785
378
LGm III, cd, min, 1077 ^
41
ms
595
III, 172
425
Papyri
ms
T
' xii, .1240. ■
24S
23S
. ^ f ■
mdmmm ymmai ef
381 X
357
l.GXI.1,776 .
32
Jrekami^i xxxviii,
4002
378
. . I, X.CN6‘2
8
p. 1791^., for A*
4x18
424
HI, 39-40
m
WEWia*i «8torttiott
4 m
4*5
III, 60-1 .
30
of P. Gkssm 40
45
423^
424
'"111,63
3 op*C?*l 7 . 9" ■
a6|
4247
435
. . . 'v' . . ' IH, 64*^5 ■
30
3*6
S
4x52
424
El, 67
30
1564
*43
4x53
4*4
El, 69
$o\Ckrimmaifyfi fWidteo)
4270
430
,,EI, X 02 O','.
'271
22
49
4271
4*4
Ei,;x045 ,
278!
35
»ss
INDEX OF PASSAGES REFERRED TO 849
Papyri
Papyri
Papyri
Ckrestomathie (Wiicken)
P. Lips^ 57
272
P. Oxy. XIV, 1659
54
41, col. Ill, 13
61
P. Oxy.
XIV, 1662
265
41, col. m, 14
72
43
398
XVII, 2104
68
96
46
I, 43, col. I, 15
39 *
XVII, 2106
269
96, frag. IV, 1 . 6
8
I, 43, col. II, 24 sqq. 398
P. Par. 69
72
,149
259
HI, 39
477
P. RyL II, 96
252
40a
266
111,405
474
Inv. 650
33S
490
2, 8
VIII, 1 1 00
22
P. Tebt. II, 287
263
551,29^.
263
XI, 1380
420
P. Tkead. 16 265,
268, 276
16. (Mittels), 378
43
i xr, 1381, 170
435
P.S.L 249
50
Hermesp lv, 1930,
, XII, 1406
18
292
265 sq.
pp. 188 sqq.
439
; XII, 1408
22
683
18
?, Bad. 37
724
i XII, 1409
266, 276
Bammelhuchp 4284
18, 280
79
724
i XII, 1411
266
Btud. Pal.
P^Cair. no. 57074
XII, 1413
265
1 XX, no. 58, col.
II,
(ed. Boak, Early By-
1 XII, 1414, I~i6
272
11. 1 1 sqq.
276
%antine Papyrip no. i)
401
i XII, 1424
280
XX, 71, II
266
P, Paytimp 20 (Bruns’,
i XII, 1433, 52
263
XXII, no. 177
373
no. 96)
64
! XII, 1441
54
P. Pkr. II
280
XII, 1455
2731
—
P, Giessen, 4-7
252
XII, 1476
1361
40 45>47
XII, 1477
265, 268
Palimpsest, Brit. Mus.
P. Gnomon, § 102
273I
XIV, 1631
252
1 add. 14623
502
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